


the point of contact

by ghostproofbaby



Category: Bill Hader - Fandom, Real Person Fiction, Saturday Night Live RPF
Genre: Bill Hader - Freeform, F/M, I'm soft for bill, Slow Burn, a lot of joking, bill hader angst, bill hader fluff, just really sweet stuff because I'm a fuckin softie, sorry if this sucks it'll be a whole series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2020-11-10 14:38:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 45,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20853422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostproofbaby/pseuds/ghostproofbaby
Summary: “And then my soul saw you and it kind of went‘Oh there you are. I’ve been looking for you.’”— I wrote this for you, pleasefindthiscollege!au for bill hader sort of (okay not really more like early snl days)





	1. chapter 1

They didn’t _usually _go out. Most nights were spent at hers, or his when his roommate wasn’t home. They’d curl up on a bed that was no where near large enough for the two of them, but they’d make it work by becoming a mass of entangled limbs and soft giggles. Neither of them cared for large crowds, or overbearing music, or expensive drinks. Sue them. He was content, happy even, with that perk of dating a fellow college student with anxiety.

That night was an exception, though.

Maya had given him a key to her apartment just two days prior, and Bill would be damned if he didn’t take advantage of that immediately. Aside from the fact that “obnoxious” didn’t even _begin _to describe his roommate, it was a comforting setting. When he felt a random panic attack start to form beneath the surface of his racing thoughts, it was easiest to just escape here. With her ridiculous amount of fall candles and overstuffed bookshelf, it was easy to start to feel like he could breathe with ease again. Besides, her fridge was better stocked than his.

He had taken advantage of this with a bowl of cereal, made with _milk_ and not _water _for the first time this week. He was spread across her little futon couch without a worry in the world when she had stormed in from classes.

“Babe?”

She hadn’t even given him a second glance and she stormed down the hall to where her bedroom was, and he heard an echoing crash that had to be her slamming her book bag down on her desk. He considered following after her, but not even seconds later she had emerged back from the hallway, teary eyed and flushed.

He didn’t waste another second before he was up, wide-eyed and enveloping her into his arms. He realized this might not have been the best idea if shewas having a panic attack, but felt more reassured as she pressed her face into his flannel and wrapped her own arms around his waist weakly. 

“Hey,” he said softly, pulling back just enough to look down at her, “Hey, what’s wrong? Why’re you crying?”

His chest ached a little when her big, glossy, brown eyes met his. “We got invited to a party.”

He couldn’t stop the laugh. He knew it might be insensitive, but the relief that overcame him was intense. His mind had already came up with a million worst-case-scenarios, but never _that._

_“_It’s not funny,” she groaned, immediately pressing her red cheek against him again and throwing a hand up to smack him gently on the chest, narrowly missing her own face, “I impulsively agreed. And I regret it.”

“I’m sorry, babe. I just…. I didn’t expect it?” He was grinning now, and he could see her flickering her eyes up to glance at him through her lashes. After another moment, she suddenly pushed him away with a dramatic sigh and made her way to the couch.

“Hey, wait, listen, I am sorry. So an invitation to a party? Both of us?” He followed her, like a lost puppy, trying to get a better handle on the situation.

“Yes, Bill. A couple classmates wanted to have drinks tonight and I was completely overeager, a social-starved _idiot_,” she groaned out, theatrically slapping her hands over her face as she drew out the word _idiot._

“That’s not bad…” he trailed off, nodding, “yeah, no. We can _definitely _handle that. What bar? And what time?” He glanced at the clock quickly, seeing it read 5 pm.

She finally looked at him, looking severely more calm than just mere minutes prior, “At like 7, I think. And I _think _they said at Q’s?”

“Wow, that’s dangerous.”

“What?” Her eyes went wide.

“You, thinking.”

She immediately swung her hand to smack his shoulder, and he dramatically fell over onto the couch, being sure to yell an exaggerated “Ow!”

“Asshole,” she was smiling wide now, though, and that’s all that really mattered. Her sour mood was clearly long gone.

“You’re the one stuck with me,” he shrugged as he sat up straight again, “So… shall we get ready?” he asked, shooting his eyebrows straight up.

And she groaned, even though she’d do anything as long as he was by her side.

\------------------------------

“Maybe I was wrong. I was definitely wrong, this was a bad idea. Can we cancel? Let’s cancel. Let’s just get back in the car and go back home.”

Bill’s mouth was running a mile a minute as his anxiety set in just as hers had settled. In the past hour or so, she had calmed herself down in the process of getting ready for the night out. And now, standing in front of Q’s, she felt ridiculous for her earlier breakdown. This didn’t mean she didn’t feel an undeniable pull to say _yes _to Bill’s pleading. But she had promised the friends they’d show up, and she wasn’t in the business of becoming a liar. 

“_No_, I did my makeup. And we’re here. So we’re committed now, pretty boy,” she cooed, pinching his left cheek once she had buttoned the top few buttons of his flannel shirt.

“I have a _few _things to say to that,” he huffed, and his hand was already flying up to the collar of the shirt to undo what she had literally _just _done.

“Hit me with them,” she challenged, grabbing his hand.

“Okay, first. Don’t call me pretty boy. If anyone’s the pretty one in the relationship, it’s _you. _Even without makeup. But also with makeup,”

“Sounds fake, but thank you,”

“It’s not! Secondly, why do I have to wear my flannel _buttoned up_? That’s ridiculous. It kills my look,”

“There’s a dress code and you don’t own any shirt fancier than that.”

“Sounds fake, but thank you,” he mimicked her as he pulled the door open for her.

She shot him a warning glare, and held up a finger, “Where’s the reassuring, loving boyfriend I had earlier?”

“He’s on vacation. Somewhere far, far away from the awkward social event we are about to embark in.”

“Shame. Hopefully he’s home by tonight, someone told me he might _get it_ if he isn’t such an ass during this ‘awkward social event’,” she deliberately used air quotes when using his words.

“Get _it?_ What’s it? Chlamydia? Because I think he’s good.”

She rolled her eyes, finally making her way through the open door and into the small bar. Smoke clouded her vision and lungs within the first ten steps, but the odd spotlights placed sporadically through the bar allowed her to see that Bill had managed to pop the top two bottoms of his shirt again. She fell silent on the topic though, not because she didn’t believe he would fix it every time she scolded him about it, but she kind of liked the way the lights hit his exposed collarbones.

The rest of the night wasn’t awful. They found their friends and greeted them with smiles and hugs. Rounds upon rounds of drinks were ordered as the conversation came alive, ranging from what semester projects everyone dreaded, to debating which true crime show was the _absolute _best. The entire time, Bill’s hand never left hers, despite the sweat that had pooled in both their palms. If he said something funny, she’d give him two squeezes and the brightest smile in the room, his own personal cheerleader. And if she said something intelligent, he’d bring her hand up to kiss her knuckles, wide eyes revealing his awe of how he had managed to get someone like _her._

At some point, the conversation had focused in on Bill. Her friends couldn’t get over him, from just how funny he was in their drunken haze, to how ‘absolutely _gorgeous’_he was. Maya watched the blush creep up his neck, spread over his cheeks while he tightened his lips into an awkward smile.

“I mean, really Maya, _how _did you get so lucky? Like, just seeing your man in that snapback…God,” One of the drunk girls,Selene, had slurred as she sloppily rested her elbows onto the table.

Bill didn’t even give Maya the chance to respond, piping up, “Actually, I like to think I’m the lucky one.”

She gave him that look. It was the one that made her friends giddy and squeal about love and fairytales. Her eyes had gone soft, big and wide and shining. Her lashes fluttered as she’d resist blinking, as if she were terrified to miss the slightest millisecond of admiring him. Her lips would purse, not in an aggravated way but in a determined way. When she looked at him like this, with all the love she could have gathered in her short 22 years of life, she was memorizing every thing. And she meant _every _thing. The creases along his mouth when he smiled, lining his cheeks like back roads. She didn’t know where’d they lead but she’d drive them every night for the rest of her life. She’d imprinted his eyes into her mind, and the shade of ocean blue they shined. Even with his insecurity in his left eye, they were her favorite thing to wake up to.

She’d looked at him like she’d just fallen in love with for the first time, in that very moment, in a smoky bar in front of a bunch of college friends they’d forget in 10 years time.

And she had. She’d fallen in love with him every day since the day they’d met.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” He asked her, oblivious to the supernova that had occurred for her. It was normal, though. A small blip in a big universe.

“No reason,” she laughed. She’d wanted to be a smart ass and banter, but she didn’t have it in her when he made her chest twist like that with his lopsided smile.

After nearly 2 hours of listening to Selene and the other people (she believed one of the guys was named Gabe but she was too embarrassed to ask) complain, and laugh about things that would one day be another dumb college story, Bill finally placed his hand on her knee, and gave it a soft squeeze. With one glance, she could tell he was ready to leave. And she didn’t blame him. It was exhausting, and he had remained sober the entire time in order to drive them back to her apartment. She wouldn’t have been able to listen to maybe-possibly-the-guy-named-Gabe’s awful series of cheese jokes without the minimum of the _two _cocktails she had in her system.

And so they left. With complaining friends and jokes of them being an old couple between drunken hiccups, they walked out of the bar hand in hand. Maya sighed as the cooler, brisk air hit the back of her neck. Arizona’s only redeeming quality was its winter season.

“They were… interesting,” Bill says, glancing to catch glimpses of Maya’s face in the streetlights.

“They were a mess,” she laughed, throwing her entire chest and head into it, “I mean, Selene spent the entire time making it very clear she wanted you.”

“Okay, yeah, but I mean… that was the Jack Daniel’s talking, right?”

“We can only hope, pretty boy,” she grinned the minute the nickname passed her lips, because Bill groaned on cue.

“Keep calling me that and I’ll start calling you by your middle name.”

“Sure, _pretty boy_.”

“Alright, _Ophelia._”

\------------------------------

The drive home was refreshing and loud. They rolled the windows down, blasted the 80s rock station, and screamed along whatever lyrics they could remember. There was an improvised air-guitar battle at every red light, and enough wrong lyrics to put a local karaoke night to shame. They were just _stupid_, and he enjoyed every minute of it.

By the time they’d gotten back to Maya’s apartment, his stomach and cheeks both ached from all the ridiculous laughing and shit-eating grins. He just leaned back in his seat, overwhelmed with how much he genuinely enjoyed her presence. It had been like this since day one, at an improv practice she’d dropped within the first week.

He’d read somewhere once to never go with the person who gave you butterflies. That you should always go with who makes you calm. And she did. She brought down waves of calmness he’d only dreamed of his entire, anxiety-ridden life.

“Are you still smiling about your whole middle name rebuttal?” Maya scoffed once she noticed his smile.

He turned his head slightly, locking eyes with her. “Yeah, that shit was pretty funny.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Yes it was, _Ophelia_.”

“Shut up.”

“_Make me_.”

It was ridiculous. She had him acting like a 17 year old again. And he knew the feeling was mutual, as it only took those two words for her to surge forward. Her lips met his and his thoughts dissipated. His hands grabbed her face, pulling her closer as if they’d never be _quite _close enough.

She pulled back slightly, forced to stay fairly close due to his hands. “That was pretty effective, yeah?”

He didn’t reply, instead opting to kiss her again. His hands wandered their way into her hair, pushing back all the strays that had framed her face for the night. She pushed herself even closer, and as they pulled apart a second time he took note of her white knuckles from how hard she was clutching his center console.

“C’mere,” he mumbled, in a daze as he threw his seat back as far as it would go. The space between his chest and the wheel was just barely large enough for her to fit as she straddled his lap. They were both breathless, kissing again. She moaned softly into his mouth as she ground down on him, and his grip on her hips tightened. She knew he would be leaving bruises. She didn’t care.

It was all the cliches. She wanted his hands anywhere and everywhere. He bit her lip and pulled her closer. She could feel him through his jeans, pressing on her thighs. And he could feel her thighs shaking, clamping against his own. His lips left hers as he trailed down, leaving open-mouthed kisses across her jaw, her ear, her neck, her-

A blare of a car horn tore them apart. They’d never jumped apart quicker, and Maya clutched her chest as she threw herself back into the passenger seat. Her legs stayed sprawled over his center console as he stared straight forward, wide-eyed and heavily breathing.

“What…the…fuck…” he breathed after a few minutes. He’d spotted a few windows spark up with golden hue, showing that the car horn had rudely woken up some of their neighbors.

And then it clicked in Maya’s head. Her stifled giggles soon progressed into full blown laughter, head thrown back and tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes.

“Why is this so funny to you?”

“That…” she gasped, having a hard time stopping her laughter, “that was _your….your _fucking car horn!”

“What? Oh my god. No, no it wasn’t. No way, I-“

“_Yes, _it was!” She should be blushing like Bill, but she can’t stop herself from smiling till it hurts. Normally, her anxiety would be on edge. The fact that it was his horn should have made it worse, far more embarrassing. Instead, she was doubled over at their stupidity.

He couldn’t fight himself from beaming at her, “Okay, now that I am thinking about it, it sort of sounded a _little _like it,”

“We’re stupid,” she sighed, leaning her head back to rest on his window. Even with her eyes closed, she could feel his gaze on her.

“Yeah…” he trailed off, watching her chest rise and fall, “Would you like to take this somewhere more spacious? Maybe like… your apartment?” 

She smiled softly, peaking her eyes open. “Yes. Yes, I would like that very much.”


	2. chapter 2

**four years later**

**New Message from Ryan**

Are you free for dinner tonight? :)

She had stared down the message for 10 minutes now. She should have responded immediately, there should never had been any answer to cross her mind but _‘yes, I’d love to’_. But her fingertips had grown ice cold, numb even, as she tried to decipher if the fizzling in her chest was her anxiety or simply from the bubbly wine.

“Okay. What’s so fascinating on that phone?” Her sister finally paused her honeymoon story, taking note that Maya was distracted.

“Sorry, Lia,” Maya sighed, shoving the phone back into her pocket, still not answering, “It’s just a text from Ryan.” 

The sour expression that flashed across her sister’s face for a millisecond didn’t go unnoticed. It had been this way the entirety of the past year; she _knew _her sister had a distaste for the new man in her life. She also knew that the distaste stemmed solely from the fact that Ryan wasn’t _him._ But Ryan was nice. He was mature, he could be caring, and he gave her butterflies. He checked off all the items of the list titled “What Maya needed in an adult relationship”. Frankly, complete family approval wasn’t on this list. Her mother loved him, and that was good enough for Maya.

“I know you don’t like him-“

“No, I mean, he’s fine. You love him, right? That’s all that matters.”

“Right,” Maya smiled softly, appreciating her sister’s lies in that moment, “So, you guys actually kissed in the rain, in front of _the _Eiffel tower?” 

Amelia immediately shook her head. “I appreciate the interest in my fairytale honeymoon, but I’m not off the Ryan topic. What’d he text?”

“Nothing, just asking if I wanted to get dinner with him. Also, I’m sorry, but I am _not _letting you brush off a _Parisan _honeymoon.”

They both laughed, recognizing their stubbornness. “You said yes, I assume?”

Silence fell as Maya focused her attention on the once chilled glass of wine, now lukewarm. She couldn’t tell if her hesitation was from the fact that she had not said yes or if she just didn’t have the heart to admit she wasn’t a fan of any alcohol lately. Especially room temperature wine.

“Did you say _no_ to Prince Charming?”

“No!”

“Then what did you respond with?” Amelia huffed, leaning to place her glass on the coffee table. She was occupying the light grey, over-stuffed chair at a 90 degree angle from Maya.

“I just….I haven’t responded,” Maya groaned, throwing herself back into the couch that matched the chair.

“What? Why?” The concern in her sister’s voice made her stomach churn.

“I don’t know,” but she did. She absolutely knew why. And clearly, she wasn’t hiding it that well as her sister moved to sit next to her on the couch.

“Are you guys fighting? You know you can talk to me right? If you need me to beat him u-“

“Lia, _no_,” Maya laughed, cutting her sister off. She closed her eyes, pressing herself into the couch even further, as if she were bracing for impact as she weakly said, “it’s my anxiety.”

For once, Amelia was speechless. A rare occurrence, and surprisingly, not one welcomed by Maya at this moment.

“Please say something,” Maya whined, peaking her eyes back open, “Tell me I’m being ridiculous.”

“I mean…” Amelia trailed off and gave her sister _that _look, the one you give to a wounded puppy, “Is _he _giving you anxiety?”

“No, not necessarily. _Everything _gives me anxiety, and I just don’t want to…burden him, I guess? When my anxiety’s this bad, I don’t want to bother him with it,” she felt stupid as she said it out-loud. She had worked relentlessly the past year to paint their storyline as her and him, a united front against the world to prove their love was the _real _kind. And yet, here she was admitting that something as measly as anxiety was building a wall between them.

“Oh, hon,” Amelia reached over to tuck a stray hair behind her sister’s ear, before pulling her into a hug, “You can’t pick and choose which bad days to share with him if you want your _own _Parisan honeymoon.”

It earned a muffled giggle from Maya, as she squeezed her sister back before pulling away. “We’ve only been dating a _year.”_

“You say that the way most people say a month.”

“No, I’m serious! Put a year into perspective, it’s so _short_-“

“I don’t have time for your introspective shit. Just text the poor dude back, have dinner with him so you can let him see the bad, the dirty, and the ugly. That way, I can get back to bragging about Paris.”

Maya laughed as her sister placed a hand on her knee, giving it a squeeze and pointed look. “Okay, but I’ll need more wine,”

“_Of course_.”

With that, Amelia headed towards the kitchen to grab a fresh bottle. The minute she rounded the corner, disappearing from sight, Maya pulled her phone out. Lia was _right_, Ryan was her boyfriend. He was _supposed _to be there for her. It wasn’t fair of her to keep him at an arm’s length, pull the curtain on him during times she found herself ugly. She _loved _him, after all.

**Message to Ryan**

Yes! Meet me at Piccola @ 7?

As she hit send, the butterflies were so strong, she didn’t understand how this could be anything but love.

\------------------------------

The glow of his computer screen was officially burning his eyes. He had spent 3 hours now, responding to emails and writing skits. His fingers ached from how many times he had rewritten the current sketch he was trying to figure out, becoming acquainted with his backspace key. No matter how he’d try to word things, the idea that had been hilarious to him and his friends mere hours prior now fell flat. 

It also didn’t help that he had fallen down a Facebook hole the past 30 minutes.

** Amelia Phoenix-Cooper just posted a new photo!**

He smiled as the notification popped up on his screen. He couldn’t _help _but smile. The last time him and Amelia had spoken, he was teasing her for updating her last name from Phoenix to Phoenix-Cooper a whole _2 hours _before her wedding even took place. He was pretty sure she’d gone on honeymoon somewhere in Europe, probably France, but he had been so caught up in work that he didn’t even attend the wedding.

He clicked on the notification just as it began to fade off screen, and immediately a photo of Amelia popped up on his screen.

Amelia isn’t the one who took his breath away, though.

It appeared as if she was almost _intentionally _blending into the New York background, glaring at her sister through bangs that needed a trim. Her hair was an ashen blonde and came to a halt just past her shoulders, although they were shrugged up in the photo. Her coat looked 3 sizes too big, and he could _picture _her white knuckles beneath her gloves from clutching onto her coffee cup for dear life.

Maya.

He hadn’t seen her in over 6 months. Or more so, he hadn’t seen a _picture _of her in over 6 months. It had been just over a year since he’d seen her in person.

He couldn’t stop himself from opening messenger, on autopilot as he typed out a message to Amelia.

**Bill Hader: **I didn’t know you were in new york!!

In reality, he wanted to say he didn’t know _Maya _was in New York.He was shaken out of his thoughts, though, when he heard the _ping!_ of a response.

**Amelia Phoenix-Cooper: **Just for the weekend! I’m visiting Maya :)

He didn’t know how to respond. He was at a loss for words in a complete whirlwind of confusion. His head pounded with several questions: When did Maya move to New York? Did she know Bill also lived here? What _part _of the city was she even from?

**Bill Hader: **I didn’t know she lived here too

He glanced over the sent message once, immediately panicking and sending a follow up.

**Bill Hader: **Would you wanna get coffee while in town?

Was he too obvious? Did Amelia realize the two hadn’t spoken in a year?

**Amelia Phoenix-Cooper: **Really?? I swear she had said she’d told you when I mentioned a while back

**Amelia Phoenix-Cooper: **I’d love to get coffee though

He sighed with relief, letting his body collapse from its ridged position to slump in his chair. 

“Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?” The voice of Bill’s roommate and technical co-worker, John, piped up from the hallway entrance. Bill glanced up, seeing the younger man frozen in the doorway.

“Oh, no. I have seen something _much _scarier,” Bill says, dramatically slapping his hands onto his thighs, palm down.

“Oh?” John’s voice spikes up at the end of the single-syllable question, encouraging Bill to continue.

“Yes… Let me paint a picture for you,” Bill waves his hands out in front of himself, not breaking eye contact with John, “Mere hours ago, I had a sketch that I considered _absolutely hilarious_,” Bill paused and John faked a shiver, “And now, as I am attempting to write it…. I have realized… it is _awful _and very much _not _funny!”

John immediately, without missing a single beat, gasped and clutched his chest, jumping a little for effect. Within seconds, though, both men broke down into chuckles. John made his way over to the couch, sitting next to Bill. 

“That… That right there is what _real _comedian nightmares are made out of,” John said, bringing his mug of coffee up to his lips.

Bill shook his head slightly despite the grin on his face, “Too bad I’m not a real comedian.”

“You’re right, we’re just a couple of slum dogs who got sucked into the SNL vortex.”

Bill’s shoulders continued to shake with laughter as he _finally _went to close his laptop. Only for John to smack his hand, of course.

“Nuh uh, where’s the ghost?”

“Excuse me?” Bill wasn’t stupid. He knew what he meant.

“Show me the picture of the ghost that turned you into a sheet of Georgia-Pacific printer paper.”

“No,” Bill deadpans, reaching to close the laptop again. John’s faster than him, though, and grabs the laptop immediately.

His eyes scan the screen for a few seconds while Bill’s frozen. “Well, this is _terribly _boring. If you’re gonna let me invade your privacy like this, make sure there’s something more than _coffee _plans with Amelia. Is she the ghost?”

“No, she’s not,” Bill sighed as he grabbed the laptop back from John. He hesitated for a moment, before making a decision he was sure he’d regret. He exited the chat, clicking back to Amelia’s photo. He turned the screen so that John could see it as he jabbed his index finger at Maya, “_That’s _the ghost.”

John’s eyebrows shot up as he let out a low whistle, “So why are we referring to this very much alive, very pretty girl as a _ghost?_”

Bill shrugged, “it was your metaphor.” 

“Okay, okay. Metaphors aside, who is she?” John finally tore his eyes off of the computer screen to meet Bill’s ashamed look.

“She’s…uh, she’s my ex-girlfriend,” Bill stammered out, closing the laptop.

“Wait a minute, wait one fucking minute! Are you planning a coffee date with your ex-girlfriend’s _friend_?” John exclaimed, reacting out of proportion in Bill’s opinion.

Bill stood up, tucking the laptop safely into his arms, “No. I’m not.”

“Oh, thank _God_. For a second there, you had me thinking you were about to do something that is _incredibly _stupid and-“

“You didn’t let me finish,” Bill yelled over his shoulder as he walked over to their kitchen counter to set down his computer before continuing, “It’s not a date. And, Amelia isn’t Maya’s friend because…Well, she’s Maya’s sister.”

“Are you fucking _kidding _me, Bill?” John jumped up from the couch dramatically, his voice several octaves too high.

Bill had made his way across the counter to pour himself a cup of coffee, only to find an empty pot. “Are we out of coffee?”

“You’re not changing this subject!” John exclaimed, still in a high-pitched voice as he sat down at one of their stools.

“It’s not a big idea, John. I was practically best friends with her when I was dating Maya.”

“How deep were you in?”

“What?” Bill scrunched up his nose, genuinely not understanding his friend.

John sighed, leaning forward. “How long was the relationship? How many times did you meet her family? I mean, to be best friends with her God damn _sister, _you had to be in pretty dee-“

“3 years,” Bill interrupts, knowing John would talk for hours if he let him.

John’s jaw had all but dropped to the floor.

“Say something,” Bill nervously, chuckled, shifting his weight from his right foot to his left foot.

“So…who broke it off after a 3 year lovefest?”

“It was mutual,” Bill lied. He felt awful in that moment, knowing he was trying to salvage what was left of his pride and ego.

“Bullshit.”

“Excuse me?”

“That mutual bullshit only works after 1 year. Maybe even 2 years. But you guys,” John pauses, holding up a threatening finger in Bill’s direction, “You guys dated _3 years. _That’s marriage-talk level. That’s being part of the fucking family level. I mean, that’s more than fifty percent of your college years, I just, I mean, I-“ John took another pause from his stuttering, and Bill watched as the dots connected one by one for him, “Wait… how long have you two been broken up?”

Bill hated this. He hated the look on John’s face as he awaited a response. “Like…Like a year?”

“Is that a question or a definitive answer, Bill?”

“It’s been more like a year and a half.”

“Jesus Christ!” John exclaimed, and Bill was starting to get irritated with it. This was _not _that big of a deal.

“Lower your voice, yeah? We have neighbors,” Bill hissed under his breath as he _finally_ returned his empty mug to the cabinets.

“Fuck the neighbors! You’re making coffee ‘plans’ with your ex-girlfriend’s sister, and you two have barely been broken up for a year,”

“A year and a half,” Bill mumbled under his breath as he moved to tug on his shoes. He needed coffee, and for this conversation to be over.

“Technicalities. Regardless, this is a _really _bad idea,” John stressed, finally letting his voice return to normal.

Bill rolled his eyes slightly, “No, it’s not. Her sister even helped me through the break up some.”

John threw up his hands in what seemed like defeat, “So she’s a bad sister. That doesn’t mean you have to be a bad ex-boyfriend.”

“She’s not a bad sister. She’s a good friend,” Bill defended Amelia. John just didn’t get it, the situation wasn’t as black and white as everyone hopes it will be.

“The way I see it, if you broke up with her, her sister would have a _duty_ to hate you for breaking her sister’s heart. Clearly, that didn’t happen,” John trails off, tasking another sip from his mug before continuing, “But if _she _broke up with _you_… well, I’m assuming they aren’t very close, because there should be a sisterly obligation there, too.”

“I’m not discussing this anymore. I’m going to get a coffee,” Bill stated as he picked his keys out of the glass bowl kept at the far end of their counter.

“I saw your messages with Amelia and know you did not set a time or location-“

“My coffee plans are not restricted by Amelia!” Bill bit back as he shrugged on his winter coat, “They are restricted by my migraines, which you have given me one from your _outburst_ about _my _ex-girlfriend,” Bill pointedly jabbed a finger into his own chest on ‘my’, just to accentuate the irony.

John didn’t reply, instead focusing intensely on his coffee mug until Bill had the door open.

He barely heard the idiot yell after him, “Bring me back a pumpkin spice latte!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi thank you to everyone reading?? like actual people are reading this and that's insane to me!!! anyways this chapter was fun to write sort of since I liked creating banter between John and Bill idk :-) ALSO didn't realize I could keep my italics and bolds last chapter but I've discovered the difference between rich text and html... I'm an old lady apparently so please bare with me as I figure out formatting


	3. chapter 3

Maya sighed in content as her hand, intertwined with Ryan’s, swung between the two of them. Her breath came out in a cloud of white, rising until it was a phantom.

“We need to go there more often,” Ryan said as he brought her hand up to kiss her knuckles.

“Maybe if you were off from work more often,” Maya teased. She used her free arm to tug her coat around her tighter, as if that would fend off the freezing temperature.

Ryan took the tease to heart, though. “If you want me to take off work more oft-“

“No,” Maya immediately interrupts, feeling awful, “No, I promise I was just joking.”

Ryan nodded, saying nothing. Suddenly, between the silence and the bite of the cold air, Maya felt like she was suffocating. This was the exact reason she had been so hesitant to see him tonight. Lately, the slightest thing could set either of them off. Ryan was so tense and stressed thathe had become like a stranger, where as Maya couldn’t shake the numbing of her fingertips or the way her chest felt like a sinkhole. She was begging for breath that wasn’t there, feeling the pounding of a headache in her temples that had yet to arrive. It didn’t even feel like she was in her own body anymore. It was static in her ears and blurring tunnel vision and sharp pains throughout her joints and-

“Earth to Maya,” Ryan chuckled nervously, cutting off Maya’s wondering train of thought.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she gushed, overflowing with apologies for the night, “I didn’t even hear you, I…I’m sorry.”

Ryan laughed, stopping and pulling Maya against a building as to not disrupt the flow of all the people walking. “Don’t be sorry, I was just asking if you’re alright. You seemed kind of far away.”

“I’m fine,” she forced a smile, giving his hand a squeeze, “Just tired. Isn’t there a Starbucks near your place?”

“Yeah! Yeah, there is, we could grab some coffees if it would make you feel better!”

In reality, Maya knew the caffeine would probably only worsen her anxiety. She didn’t care, though. “It really would.”

And so they continued walking, hand in hand, down the street. Maya counted how many times she saw puffs of white breaths, how many strangers she sighted smoking cigarettes, and how many car horns she heard along the way. She lost track within the first 3 minutes. Regardless, they were small things to ground her and bring her back from the edge of overwhelmed. By the time she caught sight of the busy Starbucks, the thrum of her heart had settled down from her throat and ears and back into her ribcage.

And then Ryan’s phone rang.

She should have been used to it at that point. He was busy, he was important. Instead of lingering on the pang that shot through her chest when he pulled out his phone, halting outside of the coffee shop and putting up a finger with a apologetic smile as he hit ‘answer’, she should be grateful the phone call hadn’t interrupted their dinner instead. She knew what she had signed up for when she’d decided to date him.

Unfortunately, the pang still haunted her. As he turned from her and cupped his hand to amplify his voice into his phone, she had never felt lonelier. And New York was an easy place to get lonely. It was a big city, filled with strangers who wouldn’t take a second glance at you in the street. The buildings swallowed you up and the traffic talked over you. Ryan wasn’t purposefully making her feel so small, so insignificantly; he was taking care of business.

“Hold on for one moment,” he said coldly into the phone before facing her again, his hand now pressed over the speaker, “I’m gonna have to be a minute, something’s happened with a deal last minute.”

She could see the guilt chewing through him. From his voice, to the way he could barely hold eye contact with her for more than 2 seconds at a time. She wondered if her own guilt was shining through as she replied, “No worries. Do you want me to go ahead and order for us?”

“Yes, I would love that. I promise I’ll keep it quick,” he sighed, shoulders relaxing immediately.

“The usual?” she asked as she forced a smile.

“Please.”

They turned away from each other, him to return to the phone call and her to enter the significantly warmer atmosphere of the Starbucks. Her jealousy gnawed at her bones, even though he was no longer in her sights. She _hated _it. When you love someone, it should be easy. It should be easy for her to stomach the fact that he had a demanding job. At the end of the day, she was his focus after all. And he had promise to make it quick, right?

She didn’t have a chance to continue her train of thought, though. She glanced up as she had entered the room, and as most people are trained to, several of the strangers also turned their attention to who had just entered the room. Her attention wasn’t on those strangers.

He was second to last in line, with a phone balanced on his hand. The screen was still lit as he had shot his head up at the chime, and let his eyes scan the room. And just before they had landed on her, she shot hers down to the floor. 

_ Bill._

She second-guessed herself. Maybe it hadn’t been him. Her mind had just been filled to the brim with anxiety, fried to the point in which she was seeing things.

So she took a second look. In that moment, she felt a flood of emotions. Two distinct ones stuck out like sore thumbs. One, she was relieved. He was looking down at his phone again. Oblivious to her stare. Two, she was _terrified_. Because it was him. It was Bill.

She didn’t know how to react, truthfully. She felt frozen in fear. She felt her heart ache in a way she had almost forgotten the feeling of. Her blood ran ice cold as the line moved forward, forcing her to make her feet follow. She was grateful for the woman who stood between them as she smoothed her shaking, sweaty palms over her dress. The sweater material was soft against her skin, and she repeated the action in an effort to calm herself. He hadn’t looked at her yet, and she prayed she had blended in with the room of odd ball New Yorkers. Maybe, she had just appeared as a blur, a misplaced smear of paint on a busy painting. She failed to calm her fears, though, as he finally approached the counter and began to order. She knew she was staring. It was neither appropriate nor polite, but her eyes lingered as his voice reached her ears. It was soft, she’d admit, but she could recognize it with ease.

Above the buzz of blenders, the screams of steamers, the buzz of small talk, she could make out the words “tall” and “black”. She felt a blush creep onto her cheeks as she embarrassingly remembered his order from college; tall black coffee, with room for cream and sugar. It was humiliating, the way a swarm of memories and emotions evaded her every thought. She watched as he walked away from the counter, and couldn’t help but for a moment, wish he looked back. Wished he had seen her. Instead, her turn at the counter came quickly, and she stumbled across her order.

All too quickly, she was handed back her change and being bumped into place by the pick up counter. By the time she’d realized she was standing across from Bill, it was too late.

_Please don’t notice me. Please don’t notice me. Please don’t notice me._

Her mantra never stood a chance against him.

“Oh my God,” she snapped her head up at the sound of his gasp, noting the way his voice shook as her wide eyes met his, “No way. So they’re just letting anybody into New York these days?”

Another wave of anxiety hit, mind-numbingly overwhelming. “I’m sorry?”

She took a second as her stared at her, an array of emotions making their way across his face. She saw the excitement, the fear, and the embarrassment as he began to believe she truly didn’t recognize him. Part of her considered keeping up the facade of cluelessness, to avoid reopening old wounds. And part of her couldn’t crush him that easily, embarrass him that easily.

The latter part won as she fake gasped, “Wait, Bill?”

“Yeah, yeah it’s me,” the way he smiled as he said it made it worth it for her. It sent a wave of comfort that silenced all her worries from mere minutes before. She hated it. She hated the way he had that affect.

“I almost didn’t recognize you, you look so fucking old,” she joked sheepishly as she crossed her arms protectively.

“Ouch,” he mockingly put a hand over his heart, leaving his mouth slightly agape, “It’s only been like… like what? A y-year or tw-“

“Just a year.”

The silence that fell between them was awkward and foreign. 

She was stuck wrapping herself up between her arms and coat, the wish to implode being overridden with the nostalgia that was taking over. There was a sense of loss there, too. Not just for her, but for Bill as well. Words used to pour out of them like broken faucets, they’d talk about anything and everything. But suddenly, in the short span of a year, they had to live with the fact that they were strangers.

And it had not happened slowly, but instead suddenly. 

One day, Bill had woken up and the best part of his life was just another faded photograph and odd collection of memorabilia he could never rid himself of. No amount of small talk in a coffee shop could heal that.

“Do you still get that pumpkin shit?” He blurted out. He knew that, technically, it wouldn’t heal him. But it sure did numb the ache for the time being.

She couldn’t even begin to hide the small that the accusation had sparked. She sure did try, though. Just as her left hand reached up to cover her mouth, the right one falling to her side, the door to the Starbucks opened up and let in an ice cold gust of wind. 

In that moment, several things happened at once for Bill. His back was to the door, and so the cold took him by surprise. He watched as Maya’s eyes left his and glanced at the door. In one simple look, the glitter fell from her eyes and she was suddenly back in stand-off mode. Her arms were crossed, her lips pressed in a tight line. There was no evidence he had ever managed to make her laugh.

He was about to turn around to figure out who, or what, would illicit that reaction just as one of the baristas called out his name to signify his drink being ready. The barista hadn’t even finished saying his _one-syllable _name when a guy walked up beside Maya.

“Hey babe, our coffees ready yet?”

In the moment it took for Maya to answer him, Bill evaluated the man. He stood straight up, perfect posture. Still, he was shorter than Bill, yet taller than Maya. His hair was a sandy blonde, kept an overall short length that left no room for messiness. His face was clean-shaven. Even in the winter attire, Bill could tell the guy was physically fit. He screamed business, all-work-and-no-play.

He screamed the opposite of Bill.

“Not yet,” Bill internally cringed as Maya’s voice had raised an octave or so. It was a small detail, one no one else around them would have even minded.

“Oh, well, I made good timing then,” the guy chuckled to himself as he finally looked at Bill. The connection clicked, the dots connected in his head as he realized the two had been in conversation.

The barista called out another name, and then repeated shouting “Bill!”

“Who’s this?”

Maya didn’t give Bill the chance to reply, nervously interrupting, “Oh, he’s just an old friend from college!”

Bill felt an unnecessary jab between his ribs. _Just an old friend._

“Ah, hi! I’m Ryan,” the guy, Ryan, shot his hand out in Bill’s direction.

As Bill took his hand to shake, his voice melted with the barista as they both said “Bill”. 

“Sounds like your drink’s ready,” Ryan nodded his head towards the counter as their hands dropped from each other.

“Right,” Bill hated how breathless he sounded.

A beat of silence resonated through the group of 3 before the barista called out, “Maya! And Bill, tall black!”

“That’s us,” Maya said eagerly, clearly ready to get out of the situation as she turned and picked up the two cups of coffee marked with her name.

“And me too, I guess,” Bill mumbled, politely walking a few steps forward and grabbing his own cup.

He turned to face Maya and watched as she handed one of the cups off to Ryan. The minute they both had a free hand, he watched their fingers interlace. He hated the way it made him feel.

“Well, we really have to get going,” Maya sighed, putting on her best apologetic face, “It was nice catching up, though, Bill.”

_That was a catch up? _“Yeah, of course… see you around, maybe?”

“Maybe.”

With that, they were off. An odd echo sounded off in Bill as he watched them hurry through the door and back into the cold, as if to accentuate the hollowness he felt.

Once they were out of his sight, Bill took a sip of his coffee without bothering to add any sort of creamer or sweetener. Shockingly enough, the coffee tasted exactly how he felt.

Terribly burnt, yet still watered down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took a hot minute because I've been working sorry!!!


	4. chapter 4

_*italicized text is past memory*_

She couldn’t quite remember the rest of the walk home.

She knew she’d managed to only finish off about half of her coffee, an unusually slow pace for her, and that Ryan had been busy ranting about the phone call he had taken. The sound of his voice had remained white static the entire walk.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He questioned once they arrived at her apartment. He had offered for her to stay at his for the night, so they could spend more time together, but she had insisted on being alone. She’d used the excuse of exhaustion, but they both knew well enough.

“Yeah, absolutely,” she reassured him, “I’m just really tired, and I have a lot on my mind.”

“Like what?”

It should warm her heart that he was so persistent, so desperate to comfort her. Instead, it sent a pang of annoyance down her nerves.

“Nothing. Just stuff with work.”

“Are you sure it isn’t something with the guy we saw at Starbucks?” Ryan asked as he furrowed his eyebrows. She wished he’d stop pestering her. She wished he’d pull one of his oblivious moments where ‘I’m fine’ ended the conversation. She wished, she wished, she wished. 

“What, Bill? Why would that have _anything _to do with me being tired?” She internally cringed at her own snappiness.

“I- I honestly don’t know,” Ryan paused, and the creases between his brows stayed prevalent, “I… I’m shooting in the dark because you’ve been so distant for most of tonight. I’m sorry.”

She felt her chest clench. There had been too many apologies, too much miscommunication between them that night. She felt bad for the umpteenth time as she pulled her keys from her purse, sighing, “Don’t be sorry.”

“Hard not to be. Are you sure you don’t want to spend the night at mine? Or, maybe, I don’t know… I could stay here?”

“I’m positive. Like I said, work,” her words began to feel sticky. The action of forcing them up her throat, into her mouth, and then sending them off into the air continued to build up difficulty. She would compare the feeling to somewhere on the spectrum of swallowing pure cinnamon, or attempting to drink maple syrup. Neither sounded pleasant. Both made her throat clench further, and even thinking of the actions gave her a belly ache. 

“Okay…” he trailed off as if he wanted to say more. As if there were a million words, a trillion syllables, on the tip of his tongue. Ryan wanted to be assured they weren’t fighting, that everything was okay. But he had more important things to focus his energy on, so he went with a simple, “Call me in the morning?”

“Only if I don’t pull an all-nighter and sleep in past noon,” Maya joked. Her shoulders slump in defeat as Ryan clearly didn’t find it funny.

“I’m serious, May,” he sighed while using his nickname for her. It sent jitters through her fingertips. Her heart began to race as the nickname brought on a slough of its own memories.

She recalled when she had first met Ryan, and how the name had came about. He was a bank teller, brand new with a fresh coat of innocence. He had pulled up her information to look into the issue at hand, and had squinted at his computer before awkwardly mispronouncing her name as ‘miss may-ah’. She had pitied him, and tried to maintain her polite smile as she had corrected him. ‘It’s pronounced my-uh’ was all it took to send a blush that spread from the bridge of Ryan’s nose like a wildfire. He had wide eyes, staring at her as his mouth went agape to make the sound of ‘oh’. She had lost it then, crumbling into a fit of giggles as he let out nervous chuckles. He stuttered his way through an apology, but Maya never needed one. She couldn’t find it in her gut to be offended at the blonde-haired, brown-eyed boy.

“I know you are, Ry,” Maya broke from the memory with ease, using her own predictable nickname. It was easy to not get lost in thought of something still in the palms of your hands. She had Ryan, right in front of her, smiling sheepishly and concerned for her feelings. Memories of Bill were harder. He was just a ghost to her.

“Get some rest, I love you,” Ryan said as he placed both hands on either side of Maya’s head gently, bringing his lips to her forehead in a feathery fashion. She barely registered the feeling by the time he had already long pulled away, awaiting a response. 

_I love you._

There was the maple syrup running down the back of her throat, again. The cinnamon puffing its way in between her tongue and cheeks. The belly ache’s return. “Get home safe.”

With that, she unlocked her door and retreated inside the dark apartment, the click of her door cutting the echos of Ryan’s footsteps short. Once there was a barrier between them, Maya reminded herself her response was _fine. _She told herself that _get home safe_ had the same significance as _I love you_. She had told him what he wanted to hear in their own secret love language. People did it all the time; they were just another romantic statistic.

As she placed her keys up on their designated hook, she felt her anxiety creep up. She hadn’t even bothered turning on the light yet as she began to shrug off her top coat and slip off her shoes. She was thinking of him again.

The truth was, Bill _was_ the reason for her silence on the way back. She hadn’t been able to control the emotions and memories that had been gated away inside her mind. She could never prepare for a storm like him to come swirling its way back into her life. She knew that this meeting could be a simple speck on her timeline, nothing but one of theuniverse’s cruel games to reopen old wounds. The conversation hadn’t been long or serious, and she knew neither had a way to contact the other now. But it didn’t stop this feeling. The entire interaction had shaken her to her core. She’d spent _ages _building up the mental dam that blocked off all her memories of him. It had started with the equivalent of sticks and twigs, but she had thought she’d built it up to the strength of stone, of concrete. Now, within the span of one measly hour, spiderweb cracks had begun to spread in her invincible dam of memories.

These memories were nothing like hers of Ryan. She couldn’t snap out of it quite as easily, nor control their appearance. They were all-consuming as her vision blurred slightly, still not adjusted to the darkness all around her. She felt her chest stutter as her breathing became labored, allowing herself to press her back up against her door as she tried to close her eyes, will off the painful memories.

The reality was that the minute the door had shut, the dam had broken loose; and she was flooded.

\------------------------------

_Her fists clenched tighter as the unforgiving wind smacked her between the eyes, sending shivers down her spine. She scoured the large building in front of her for any sign of just _which _building it was. The paper crumpled into her right fist had said to meet in building FSH, room 120._

_Finally, she spotted the silver lettering of “_Film School Hub_” next to a set of clear double doors. And just above these words, the abbreviation FSH stood out like a sore thumb._

_‘_So that’s what FSH means,’_ she realizes as she stays put in her spot across the small street._

_She stayed frozen for several more seconds, only moving once she noticed dark spots splattering the sidewalk around her. She felt a large droplet hit her left cheek and finally sighed as she forced herself to cross the distance between her and the building._

_The inside of the building was nice enough. _Everything _about this school seemed nice enough. As Maya wandered the halls, eyes darting about to spot room 120, she considered her first week at the new college. All the people she’d encountered had been kind, all of her professors seemed surprisingly forgiving, and the weather had been pleasant. Not the normal scorching heat she had expected from Arizona, but instead the skies had stayed grey and cloudy. It made the move back from Washington easier, helping calm the friction she’d felt with her head hung low._

_Despite letting her thoughts trail off from the task at hand, Maya realized she had yet to find room 120. She stopped in the middle of the hallway she was currently in, seemingly alone, and sighed. The back of her head fell against the brick wall behind her with a soft thump due to her hair. She hadn’t even wanted to do this to begin with. It was her psychology professor who had pushed her into motion, sending her down a fast-way track that ended in an _improv group.

_“Pick a social norm, and break it.”_

_His words echoed in her head as she let her eyes flutter closed. It was a god damn extra credit assignment, not even a normal assignment for a mandatory grade. But she’d take whatever spare points she could add to her cumulative score in the class, hoping to make up any missed questions on tests. She could still picture the confused look on the professor’s face when she’d approached him about it. She was _smart_. She didn’t _need _extra credit as far as he was concerned. He’d created the project due to his pity for those students who were clinging to dangerously low C’s in his class. Not someone who had an A. Albeit a low A, but an A nonetheless._

_But the young girl, a new face this semester, had come to him pleading. With the knots of anxiety filling her shoulders, and nervous eyes, she’d explained she wanted to partake in the assignment but was at a loss for which social norm to choose. He was a psychology professor; if he hadn’t picked up on her classic, textbook anxiety during class, he’d consider himself a failure in his profession. And so he’d made an exception._

_He had told her, “what’s a social norm _for you_? In the society that consists of _you_, what is a norm you would never dream of breaking?”_

_An hour later, which should have been used as their lunch time though neither minded, they had stumbled upon the idea for her to join a social club. She was new in town, to some extent, and had always hesitated in making friends. They had gone on the school website, and chosen the first advertised club. _Improv.

_And so, here Maya was. Her chest rapidly rising and falling to an irregular beat that clashed with the sound of the rain that had picked up outside the building. She sincerely hoped the storm passed by the time this club meeting ended. She had to walk back to her apartment, and hadn’t brought an umbrella._

_When she finally opened her eyes, she was surprised to find herself no longer alone in the hallway. _

_A young man, presumingly around her age, was standing across from her, looking just as confused as she felt. His nose was scrunched and eyebrows furrowed as he stared daggers into the paper clutched in his right hand. Maya’s eyes focused in on it, and realized quickly that the paper matched her own._

_It took every microscopic cell of her being to find the courage to clear her throat loudly, and ask, “You looking for the improv group?”_

_Her words echoed in the empty hallway, only occupied by the two lost souls. As he looked up at Maya, his features slowly smoothed themselves out and the corners of his mouth turned up into a soft smile. He looked like he broke hearts for a living._

_“Yeah! You too?” His voice was comforting, and Maya suddenly felt 8 years old again. His eyes met hers and she suddenly remembered the summer she spent any chance she could in a swimming pool. The burning scent of chlorine replaced the warm rain, and the limited light shining through the windows mimicked the sun breaking through the surface of the pool water. Suddenly, she wasn’t standing in the middle of a humid hallway. She was sitting at the bottom of her childhood swimming pool, cool water raising goosebumps across her forearms as the weight of the water pressed on her shoulders. Her breath was escaping her in bubbles that tickled on their way out between her tightly pressed lips, and her eyes squinted reflexively. She knew she’d run out of air eventually, but she loved the calm before the storm._

_It didn’t feel like drowning._

_“Yes, but emphasis on the _looking_,” she laughed softly as she broke the surface of her metaphorical pool, “Do you have any clue where room 120 is?”_

_“I’m going to assume between 119 and 121.”_

_“Very funny.”_

_“So I’ve been told.”_

_The silence that fell between them was comfortable. Maya’s smile mimicked his as they stood two feet apart. His eyes are a soft blue, the same color as pool water. Her cheeks are flushed pink, but the boy assumes it’s a reflection from the red prints on the floor._

_She’s so caught up memorizing him that when he juts his hand out in her direction, she jumps a little._

_His laughter echos all around her as he keeps his hand stretched outward, “I’m Bill, by the way.”_

_“Maya,” she squeaks as she takes his hand tentatively._

_After a few seconds and a gentle squeeze on Bill’s part, their hands separate. She’s almost shocked her fingertips didn’t prune up from the interaction. The few seconds for him had felt like a few years for her, but not in the bad way. Not in the normal, anxious way, but in a new way. It’s a way she’d like to feel every chance she’s given._

_“Well, the paper says the meeting is going to start at…” Bill pauses, squinting down at his flyer, “3?”_

_“What time is it now?” She only asks this of him as she spots the watch on his wrist._

_He checks it, sucking in a sharp breath and looking up at her with a glint in his eyes she can’t quite place. “3:05.”_

_“Shit,” she can’t stop the curse from falling from her lips, even if she tried. She _hates _being late. She learned this in high school, when every tardy led to the walk of shame in front of dozens of judging eyes._

_“Shit’s right.”_

_“Do you think they’ll even let us in if we’re late?” He can see the genuine worry in her eyes as she questions this._

_“I think, it’s an improv group. They’re going to take whoever they can get,” he remarks, and it causes her eyebrows to shoot up in surprise at his confidence._

_“Well, that’s kind of mean,” she says with the intention of starting a defensive rant, but instead leaves it at that. She’s not a regular part of this crowd._

_“Yeah, well, I only say it with prior knowledge,” he pauses for dramatic effect, smiling widely as he notices the way she listens intently to his every word, “I’ve been to a few other improv groups.”_

_She feels ridiculous as her mouth falls agape in a soft “oh”._

_“Have you never been to one?”_

_“No.”_

_He feels bad at chuckling, but it’s hard to wrap his head around this. “You’re a college girl who actively sought out an _improv _group? On your own free will?”_

_“Something like that,” she says, opting for that instead of a comment joking about how the times are changing. She doesn’t know him well enough to allow her mouth to run as it usually does._

_Neither of them know where to go with the conversation at this point, but a clap of thunder from above them reminds them that their purpose of being in this building to begin with is, unfortunately, _not _solely to meet one another._

_“You know, if we combine both of our useless navigation skills, we might be able to find that room 120.”_

_She can’t say no to him, even after only knowing him less than 10 minutes. He’s crossed some of the space between them, and she can smell the lingering cologne and rain on his jacket. Wordlessly, she nods and begins to lead the way. It’s an unknown confidence, something she would never expect from herself, but she’d like to prove herself to this stranger named Bill._

_And as it turns out, Bill’s assumption of their combined uselessness becoming useful was _correct_. It doesn’t even take a full 5 minutes for Maya to spot the plaque reading _120_. She notes how secluded the door is from the other classrooms, and turns to Bill._

_“Look at that! New navigation world record!” He says a little too loudly for Maya’s comfort, but she doesn’t fight her smile. He mockingly throws up his hands as if cheering someone on, but settles down as Maya’s face falls towards the floor. He takes note of the tension in her posture, the way she looks like she’s giving herself an internalized pep talk. She’s awkwardly picking at the fingers of her right hand with her left hand. Bill recognizes the nervous tick with ease; he has the same one._

_“Guess we should join the party,” he pipes up, recapturing her attention. He thrives off of it. Any on-looker would pick up the way he straightens up under her gaze. _

_Maya takes a deep breath, anxieties to hell, and says, “Right.”_

_Her high school fear comes to life as they enter the larger classroom. Her anxiety rears its ugly head as several pairs of eyes fall on her. She’s suddenly glad that she ran into Bill, because if she didn’t notice the way the eyes flicker onto him after looking her over once, she’d have ran for the hills._

_The center of the room is filled with several desks paired with chairs, most occupied by fellow students. They form a semi circle around a white board and two taller looking boys. Off to the immediate right, there’s a table set up with several pizza boxes stacked upon each other. Underneath the table, it appears there’s an ice chest. Considering the empty boxes that once held cans of Coke and Pepsi, Maya can only assume that’s what fills the chest._

_“Hi! Welcome in! We were just about to get started!” One of the guys standing by the white board greets them._

_It fires up a whole new round of anxiety for Maya, but when Bill gently reaches up to squeeze her forearm, it calms her some. She’s immediately confused as he takes off to the other side of the room, until she realizes there’s only _two _empty desks. He’s left the one closest to them for her. She’s grateful as she notices that the only other two girls in the room are seated beside it. Not that men inherently terrify her, but the guys that now surround Bill in his seat don’t look appealing to her. They look like a headache._

_The rest of the club meeting is a blur. Maya is overcome with her anxiety. From knee bouncing to lip biting, she cycles through all of her nervous ticks and habits she should truly kick. On occasion, she’d let her eyes wander over to Bill. He seemed interested enough in the discussion happening regarding when the weekly meetings should occur from that moment on, but Maya was tuning them out. She already knew she wouldn’t be attending the next meeting._

_He was pretty. She’d known this since she had also decided he was a heart-breaker. She’d started to picture the line up of girls he had smiled at, capturing their attention for days at a time, maybe even weeks. She imagined the way a guy like him would let the girl down ‘softly’, as if anything would soften the blow of rejection from someone like _him_. She paid attention to the way he’d purse his lips, and how when he laughed, he truly _laughed_. He wasn’t like Maya, who would hide her laughter. He didn’t care if the whole world could hear his laughter. She doesn’t think the world would mind hearing it, either. _

_Eventually, the meeting’s ending begins. The two guys who ran it announce there is pizza and refreshments for everyone to enjoy. They encourage people to stick around and socialize, but it isn’t shocking when a few people leave without giving the pizza a second glance. Maya stays seated as everyone around her stands. She notes that a few people simply grab a few slices of pizza, maybe a coke, and then rush through the door. She considers making a run for it, too, until she hears thunder._

_It’s _still _raining._

_Before Maya can even start her internal rant (because, yes, she _does adore _the rainy weather, but it’s never occurred at a more inconvenient time for her), she feels a tapping on her shoulder. When she looks up, her brown eyes meet blue ones again. _

_“Not hungry?” Bill’s voice isn’t accusing, but genuinely curious as his eyes flicker between the girl and the mass of people surrounding the table with pizza._

_She shrugs, “I am, kind of. I’d rather not fight the horde, though.” _

_Bill immediately shakes his head, sticking his hand out to her again. It reminds her of the moment they’d met in the hallway, just about an hour earlier._

_“If you just sit here, there’ll be nothing left,” he insists. He looks hopeful, as if everything in this room will implode unless her palm meets his._

_And so her palm meets his. And while all the pieces fall in place for him, the room still implodes for her. In the _good _way, though._

_Once she’s standing, he drops her hand again. Part of her wants to be disappointed, but she’s hit with a pang of hunger instead. The flyer had promised the free pizza, so she’d skipped out on lunch. And possibly breakfast, unintentionally._

_They make their way across the room to the table in silence. It doesn’t feel as easy as it did in the hallway. They’re in a room full of people, and Maya is the _opposite_ of a performer. Wandering eyes will be the bane of her existence._

_As the last few people linger at the long table, Maya just stands there. She’s scanning what’s left, figuring out her options, as Bill turns his stare to her._

_“Dealer’s choice.”_

_“Pardon me?”_

_“Pick your poison.”_

_She bites her tongue when she sees the smirk on his face. They’re aware of the odd contrast between them. All her confidence in front of him is fabricated to mask her overwhelming politeness. There’s not an ounce of annoyance or bitterness in her tone. There hasn’t been since _she _initiated the conversation between the two in the hallway. All of Bill’s confidence was real, his cockiness fueled by the fact he’s a young man in college and feels completely intangible. _

_Both their bones shake, but their own manifestation is where the similarity begins to separate._

_Maya takes a deep breath before impulsively opening the pizza box closest to her. She tells herself whatever she opens it to is what the two of them will eat. Simple as that._

_The box is empty._

_Bill is laughing again, clutching his stomach as he watches the embarrassment cross Maya’s freckled cheeks. Suddenly, he ponders if the redness on her cheeks in the hallway _wasn’t _a reflection._

_“Here, let’s try this one,” his voice is still lightly teasing, but Maya isn’t bothered by it. It’d be worse if she didn’t find him as funny as she did._ _ _

_Bill is less impulsive in his actions, choosing a box from the bottom of the stack in front of him. As he throws the lid open to reveal four slices of cheese pizza, both him and Maya release the breaths they were holding._

_“Oh, thank god,” she mumbles, frantically grabbing two paper plates from the quickly depleting pile._

_They don’t talk much as they both pull their two slices onto their own plates. When Bill reaches down into the chest Maya had spotted earlier, she sees she was right. There’s only Pepsi left, but as she glances around the room, she sees a few bright red cans scattered._

_“This okay?” Bill asks as he holds up one of the blue cans. _

_“Yeah, I’m not a pretentious bitch. I can respect Pepsi,” she hadn’t thought through the joke at all. It had slipped from her mouth carelessly, not considering if Bill would find her funny still._

_But he does. He laughs (god, does she love his laugh), and he carries two cans of soda over to two desks that seem a bit separated from the rest of the socialites surrounding them._

_“So,” he hums as he places one can on the desk in front of him, and then sets the second can on the corner of the desk Maya sits at, “You respect Pepsi. Any other controversial opinions I should know about?”_

_Maya grabs her soda graciously once she’s set her plate of pizza down. They’re sitting directly across from each other as the drum of the rain beats harder. She figures she won’t be leaving any time soon, as the cold of the can seeps into her hand. She tries to rationalize it’s because of the rain, not Bill, though she knows the truth._

_“I like pineapple on pizza,” she tries to reply as nonchalantly as possible._

_“What?” Bill exclaims, causing a few heads to turn their way. She jokingly shushes him, but it’s exactly the reaction she was looking for._

_“Do you not?” She laughs._

_“No,” he deadpans. _

_She shrugs, leaning back in the chair. The faux confidence is back. “Your loss. Pineapple and pepperoni pizza would _rock your world_.”_

_Bill can’t reply as he watches her sip on her soda. He takes a bite of cheese pizza to cover up the fact that he’s speechless. The girl in front of him is an enigma, a walking contradiction. She is nervous and polite, yet snarky and sarcastic. She’s a firecracker just waiting for someone to light her up. _

_Bill wishes he had a fire that burned bright enough to do just that._

_“See? You can’t even argue. It sounds good, it’s okay. You can admit it,” she teases him before beginning to eat her own pizza._

_The light hearted conversation continues. In between full mouths and greasy fingertips, the two get to know each other with a certain ease neither have ever felt before. Maya is grateful she found the nerve to speak up in the hallway previously. The boy in front of her makes her feel _alive_ the longer she talks with him. He’s thought wrong; his fire burns _more _than bright enough to ignite her._

_As Bill shoves the final bite of his first slice into his mouth, Maya musters up enough courage to stand up and grab them a stack of napkins. She ignores the few, quick stares from her movement. She’s too high off of the happiness caused by the boy with greasy fingers and a sticky tongue. _

_He _gets _her. He finds her as funny as she finds him, and if either of them say something that falls flat, the other one is eager to pick the conversation right back up. There’s no tripping over embarrassment. There’s no scrutinizing judgment. She’s telling him things she hasn’t trusted anyone with in _years. _She’s recounted the panic attacks set on by mere _spider web_, not even the _spiders _itself. He admits his own anxiety, the way his own irrational fears plague him. They talk about their favorite seasons, and where they grew up. For Bill, Tulsa is home. For Maya, Phoenix is home. The latter isn’t quite as loving of her home city, but she listens to Bill’s rambles about Oklahoma. She’s visited a few times, and thought it was nothing special. After him, she won’t be looking at it the same._

_She feels safe. He’s overflowing with comfort, and beggars can’t be choosers in her case._

_As she places the bundle of napkins between the two of them, she captures Bill’s attention once again._

_“What’s your middle name?”_

_She’s barely settling back into her seat, smoothing her palms over her sweater and jeans. She laughs nervously, “What?”_

_“Your middle name. What is it?”_

_Despite his glossy, hopeful eyes, she knows she can say ‘no’. She can simply explain that she isn’t ready to reveal personal information such as her middle name to someone she has known for less than two hours. Bill will take the rejection, chest and chin held high. And in any other situation, she would have rejected._

_Instead, she lets her gaze linger on the group of boys on the other side of the room. Her chest feels the way the can of soda that they are tossing amongst their group must feel: fizzy and ready to burst at the slightest misstep. She can hear the carbonation from across the room as the coke does break with a final fall, just as she replies, “Ophelia.”_

_Bill wasn’t expecting an honest reply. All he can choke out is, “Ophelia? Pretty.”_

_“Very,” she sighs dramatically, and Bill readies himself as he can simply _sense _there’s more to it, “But I’ve hated it since the fourth grade.”_

_“What happened in the fourth grade?” Bill inquires before taking down a gulp of Pepsi just slightly too large, sending pains through his chest._

_“Well… My last name is Phoenix. So my full name is Maya Ophelia Phoenix.”_

_“And?”_

_Maya smiles gently at his oblivion. “One of the boys realized what that meant my initials were.”_

_She sees his face transform from pure confusion to realization as it hits him. Immediately, his eyes are wide and staring straight into hers. His mouth falls agape as he fights a grin. She can see him press his tongue to the back of his top of teeth._

_“Oh. My. God. Your initials spell _mop_.”_

_“Yes. Yes, they do.”_

_The laughter and teasing that ensued was worth it. People sent concerning glances their way as Maya and Bill completely lost it. On one side of the room, the boys were desperately cleaning up their exploded Coke. And on the other side, two people lost themselves in each other. At some point, both finished up their drinks and the last of their pizza. Maya embarrassingly explained how fourth grade had been living Hell. As if having the initials MOP weren’t bad enough, she also had several boys in her class joke that her dad had to be the President of Phoenix, considering her last name was Phoenix. Of course, there was a boy who had attempted to come to the rescue, claiming “there is no president of Phoenix, you idiots!”. It was sweet enough, until he followed it up with “Her dad is obviously the mayor”._

_By the time they’d settled back down, the storm wasn’t wrecking havoc outside anymore. Bill noticed it first, glancing at one of the tiny windows near the ceiling on the far wall._

_“The rain’s letting up.”_

_The disappointment flooded her veins as she looked around, realizing that not only had the rain let up, but most of the people who had attended the meeting had finally vacated the room. Aside from them, only four people remained. Two of which were the boys who ran the meeting._

_“I should probably start heading home,” Maya sighed. She didn’t want the time with Bill to end._

_She was sitting at the bottom of the pool, again. _

_It was just like she was younger, and her mother would call her in from the pool. She’d swim to the bottom of their diving pool, attempting to sit cross-legged on the rough bottom as long as her lungs would allow. The same comforting silence that engulfed her ear drums at the bottom of pool returned to her as she sat in front of a quiet Bill._

_“Yeah, probably.”_

_It was a pathetic response, but she could tell from his face that he felt the same as her. They looked like a pouting pair of toddlers._

_Maya made the first move, grabbing her trash from the desk and standing. Bill looked startled, but mimicked her movements as she went to the large trashcan in the room to toss everything away. She spun on her heel to face the board immediately, and made a mental note of the whiteboard. _

Next meeting on Monday @ 4 PM! Be there or be square! :)

_Maya nudged Bill softly with her shoulder as he turned to look in the same direction. “Are you coming to the next meeting?”_

_“Yeah, probably, why?” He questioned, looking down at her. She didn’t even realize that his heart had skipped beats in sync with hers._

_“No reason.” And suddenly, Maya had plans for Monday. Despite her earlier pessimism, she would come to a second meeting. Not for Bill. No, she would simply due to her dedication to her extra credit assignment._

_With that, the two turned to exit the classroom. Side by side, they navigated the halls with ease this time. As they came up to the clear double doors, though, Maya hesitated. She stopped dead in her tracks once they were not even three steps from exiting the building. She knew once they passed the threshold, the afternoon was over. She hated how it weighed on her chest, the childish manner in which she wanted to cling to the hours. Bill looked at her questioningly, having stopped a step or two past her._

_“Are you okay?”_

_“What’s _your _middle name?”_

_She had never returned the question as they had gotten so immersed in her own middle name._

_Unlike with Maya, Bill showed no hesitation in answering. His words filled with genuine trust as he replies, “Thomas.”_

_Maya nods. It was a small detail, but it made it real for her. If she at least knew his middle name was Thomas, then she could convince herself she hadn’t imagined him up._

_“It suits you.”_

_“I sure hope so,” he laughs, reaching out to grip the handle on the door closest to him, “I’m kind of stuck with it.”_

_“Still,” Maya shrugged._

_And then they open the door. The humid air hits them. They cross the threshold and the afternoon has ended. They shyly wave and echo goodbyes, and then Maya and Bill turn and walk away in opposite directions._

_Monday couldn’t come fast enough for Maya._

\------------------------------

Maya doesn’t remember getting in the shower.

She must have worked on autopilot, making it through the cold and dark hallway. The scalding water pounds against her skin, leaving bright pink markings along her shoulders and chest. She barely processes when her head slips underneath the stream of water.

Her wet hair immediately clings to the sides of her face, weighing down on top of her ears. She grabs her washrag and soap. And then she’s scrubbing. Agitating hot, pink skin until it’s red and sore. Everything stings as she’s desperately attempting to wash away the memories. Water droplets make their way onto her face, mingling with tears she doesn’t notice marking her cheeks. With damp lashes and a roaring silence in her ears, she tries to stop thinking about him. 

She doesn’t want to remember the way he made her feel. She doesn’t want to remember how everything was so _easy _between them. With Ryan, she has to second guess every joke. She has to walk with careful steps to avoid another passive aggressive argument. It isn’t that he is an awful boyfriend or that their relationship is bad, per se. It’s just the inevitable reality that every time the butterflies burst to life in her chest because of him, she misses sitting at the bottom of the swimming pool with Bill.

It becomes overwhelming.

Everything processes in slow motion as she steadies herself against the ice cold shower wall, contrasting from the steam surrounding her. She sinks down. And she keeps sinking until she’s sat on the floor of her shower, knees pressed into her chin for dear life. The hot bullets of water pelt her forearms and leave them numb. She can’t contain the sobs that escape her, finally coming to terms with how much the evening has affected her. She fucked up; she couldn’t swallow her pride.

She situates herself directly under the stream of the shower. It’s not the same. The water is too hot, too loud, too aggressive on her shoulders. The light flickering through the shower curtain isn’t calming, it’s depressing. When she opens her brown eyes, she doesn’t meet blue eyes.

No matter how hard she tries, on the floor of her shower, she can’t recreate the feeling Bill gave her.

She misses it, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes I am posting this at 2 am my time. yes this is a monster of a chapter that's double the length of all the others without good reason. yes I think pineapple belongs on pizza. no I will not be taking any criticism thanks !!!
> 
> (on a serious note tho thank you for reading and for the kudos and for the comments y'all too kind)


	5. chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, italicized is a past memory! :)

_Chicken noodle. Tomato. Broccoli and cheese. Vegetables. Steak and potato._

_Bill suddenly decides there are too many flavors of soups in this world, staring down the array of options on the shelf before him. Steak and potato soup didn’t even _sound _appealing to him._

_He can’t stop internally cursing his roommate. Technically, groceries weren’t supposed to be his problem this week. Jake was supposed to restock their small fridge and cabinets with the basic necessities. Instead, Bill got stuck with the disengaging job._

_“Lentil? Lentil soup, who the fuck wakes up in the morning and decides they’re going to have lentil soup for dinner?” Bill murmurs to himself as he continues to scan the shelves hopelessly. His roommate only wrote down ‘soup’. Nothing more, nothing less. It was the shittiest grocery list he’d ever gone shopping with._

_Suddenly, though, Bill’s mind was not on the soup in front of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he had spotted another shopper wander their way into the aisle. Once he fully looks at her, Bill immediately feels saved from dying of boredom and adulthood._

_“Mop?” Bill gasped, nearly dropping his basket of items._

_He watches the young girl, who is not facing him, tense up in the shoulders. He’s suddenly praying that this is in fact Maya, and not someone who happens to look like her from behind. He could have sworn it was her by shoulder-length, ash-blonde hair and a soft-knit, gray cardigan. There was the chance that more than one girl had blonde hair that length, and owned a gray cardigan. A slim chance, in Bill’s mind, but still._

_The breath he was holding is released when the girl slowly turns around and it _is _Maya._

_“Will I never live that down?” She complains once she spots that it’s Bill, “I told you that in confidence!”_

_He notes the way her shoulders have slumped, not from disappointment, but in relief. “Hey, you can’t just expect to tell people that your initials spell mop and for them to _not _use it as a nickname.” _

_“Oh, but I can. Most of the population are polite enough to catch the hint after I spill my fourth grade sob story.”_

_Her smile is infectious. Bill is suddenly _glad _for a lazy roommate, forcing him out into the world with perfect timing._

_“Cry me a river. What are you doing here, anyways?” Bill asks as he walks further down the aisle to be closer to her. All he wants to be is closer to her._

_She gives him a confused look, though. Almost as if she’s holding back a burst of laughter as she replies, “Grocery shopping? As most people do, when they’re in a grocery store?” _

_His mouth falls open as he had completely forgotten where they were. “Oh, yeah. No shit.”_

_“No shit is right,” she giggles, _actually _giggles. Bill nearly goes into cardiac arrest then and there, being the hopeless romantic he is, “Finding any good soup?”_

_“No. But I’ve always been more of a broth guy, myself.”_

_“Gross,” her face scrunches and she reaches out for a can of chicken noodle soup. Once she’s placed it into her own basket, she turns to face Bill fully._

_She’s soft around the edges, and he loves it. She smells like cinnamon and vanilla, and she feels like home with just one look. It’s intoxicating._

_“It’s just… who even uses the word ‘noodle’ anymore? Grow the fuck up, you know?” He holds a straight face as he says this. Her chin is held high as his nods towards the floor to hold eye contact. _

_The minute Maya registers what he has said, she loses it. _

_“I’m sorry, _what?!_” She gasps out before falling victim to laughter filled with snorts and wheezes. Bill joins in, watching as she clutches her stomach and her shoulders shake from the laughter._

_“I’m serious! Look, I’m serious! I hate the word!” Bill attempts to defend himself, but Maya is still stifling laughter._

_“What do you propose they call it, then? Chicken spaghetti soup?” Her sentence is interrupted by a few more giggles as she struggles to complete the thought, but it sends them both into more laughter._

_“No! But I’ve always wanted to try chicken macaroni soup.” _

_In between her fits of laughter, Maya makes a face of pure disappointment. It only appears for seconds at a time, but she finally is able to hold it long enough to say, “That sounds fucking _disgusting_.”_

_“It’s not!” Bill is interrupted by more of Maya’s laughter, and he doesn’t have it in him to be annoyed by it, “Listen. It is delicious. If you’re so determined to make me try pepperoni and pineapple pizza, then you have to let me make it for you sometime.”_

_“Have you ever even had…Chicken…macaroni…soup?” She says this slowly, gasping in between the words to fight anymore laughter. They’re getting enough looks from the shoppers around them anyways._

_“No. I’m saving my first time for with you,” Bill hasn’t even finished the innuendo before Maya’s hand has smacked against his bicep. He throws his hands up in surrender, and nearly sends his loaf of bread flying out of his basket._

_“You’re disgusting. Have I mentioned that? Disgusting,” Maya sighs, shaking her head in faux disappointment._

_“You love it, though.”_

_She doesn’t reply, instead looking at him softly. It suddenly hits Bill that this is the first time, in the month that he has known Maya, that they have met _outside _of the improv group. It doesn’t necessarily feel any different to Bill. Just a little bit nicer, if anything._

_They’re broken out of their small moment when another customer brushes past them. Their cart is loaded with items and has a squeaky wheel that rings throughout the aisles even long after the customer is out of sight._

_“It’s weird seeing you outside of improv,” Maya finally brings it up once they’re alone in the aisle again. Bill’s glad; it means she took notice of it as well._

_“What? The grocery store’s fluorescent lights don’t do my cheekbones the same justice as room 120’s lights?” _

_“Yeah,” Maya trails off, her eyes flickering about Bill’s face as if to confirm the statement, “that sounds about right.” _

_“This feels long overdue, you know,” Bill is feeling bold. He knows he might sound weird, but finally having a conversation with Maya outside of the FSH building feels _right_._

_“What? Us debating over soup?”_

_“No, us generally having conversations in the real world.”_

_“Oh.”_

_She pauses, and Bill’s heart is ready to explode. He should have kept his mouth shut. He should consider himself lucky she’d even talk to him at improv, let alone outside of the gr-_

_“I’d have to agree. It does feel overdue,” she derails his thoughts. She says the exact opposite of what he expects. And it feels so damn _good_._

_“Thank God. I looked like a stalker, there for a moment.”_

_“You didn’t. Hey, what are you doing after this?” The way she blurts it out, Bill can tell she’s being impulsive. Maybe she would even consider herself being reckless._

_“Probably just taking my groceries home, and then working on some essays,” Bill hates the way she deflates as he says this. He realizes immediately it was _not _the answer she was looking for, so he follows up, “But I’m free tomorrow. Why?”_

_“Thought you might want to finally try the iconic pepperoni and pineapple pizza. And you know, have more conversations in the real world,” she rocks on her feet, going from the balls to the heels as she looks up at him nervously, “Plus, I know a pizza shop that makes it really good. Even if you’re a pineapple-hater, you’ll appreciate it.”_

_This is his moment. Suddenly, he knows that he wants her in his life. No matter the circumstances, no matter the cost._

_He smiles at her, the outside corners of his eyes squinting as he looks down at her. She never wants him to stop smiling at her like that; he doesn’t _plan _on ever stopping smiling like that at her._

_“I’m game. You need my number?”_

———————————————

Bill doesn’t sleep well that night.

He tosses and turns at every little sound, lost to a fever dream reel of memories that become distorted. By the time he properly wakes up, he doesn’t remember just _how _distorted the dreams were. But he knows which memories had snuck their way in.

He can see the flicker of these memories, from their first encounter outside of improv, to several of their dates. Even ones he had considered disasters at the time.

They had all been _happy _memories, originally. But as Bill made his way from his bedroom to the shared kitchen, he remembered the fear and dread that had hung over each recollection. It had been a storm cloud. _That _was why he had such unruly rest. _That _was why he had bags under his eyes that weighed him down. Those memories were once safe havens, and suddenly, they held a sinister meaning beneath the rays of sunshine. 

Suddenly, he knew the ending to their story. And it wasn’t happy, it wasn’t smiles and laughter. It was tears and silence and an overwhelming confusion he would just have to live with. 

All these thoughts crash through him before it’s even 8 AM, and he’s already pouring himself a second cup of coffee. This time, he adds sugar and cream.

“Hey! There he is,” John greets over a bowl of cereal at their kitchen counter equipped with stools, “You look awful.”

“Thanks,” Bill snips back sarcastically. He _knows _he looks like shit. He _feels _like shit, too.

“Nothing hair and make-up can’t fix up, right?”

Bill had completely forgotten what day it was. The unexpected appearance of Maya in his life, even briefly, had invaded every space. He had forgotten that life had to go on. He had a job, he had obligations. Unlike most people, his Saturday couldn’t be dedicated to pathetically moping over an ex-girlfriend. 

“Shit. I forgot it was Saturday.”

“How? Normally, you’re fucked up with nerves,” John laughs before continuing to eat his cereal. At first, it doesn’t occur to him that the fact something has distracted Bill enough to override his own _anxiety _should be troublesome. However, as the silence hangs in the air and John finishes his bite of cinnamon toast crunch, it dawns on him, “Hey, you didn’t bring me back a latte last night.”

It’s no “Hey, are you okay? What happened last night?” but Bill gets the gist.

“Yeah, sorry about that. It’s just… I had,” Bill pauses and decides to choose his next words carefully, “I had ran into an old friend.”

“An old friend? From what, college?”

Bill hesitates. “Yes.”

“Amelia?”

“No, not Amelia,” Bill insists. He knows it would be easier to come clean. He could simply tell John about how he had encountered Maya last night. He could rant about how it was affecting him, talk over his feelings and try to make sense of the muddled mess. He knows John cares, and would be more than willing to play therapist.

That’s not John’s job, though. The two have been roommates for a mere six months, and Bill has only broken down once. That breakdown would never compare to the unravelling he felt from Maya. It had been an accident, pre-show nerves and his own self-doubts had made Bill crumple like a paper-man the first time.

But Maya wasn’t such an easy explanation. 

“Who was it then?” John had finished his breakfast at this point, and now walked around Bill to the sink.

His proximity made Bill feel a wave of guilt for lying, “Just some guy. He was in this improv group with me sophomore year.” 

It wasn’t a _total _lie. Maya _was_ someone in his improv group during sophomore year.

“Oh, well that’s boring.” 

And with that, the interrogation ends. Bill still feels the slightest guilt at lying to John, but within seconds John is onto another topic. As he’s cleaning his bowl, he reminds Bill of what sketches will be on the live show that night, and that he _promised _many important people that they’d both show up to the after party. Bill agrees he’ll go, only because he feels he owes it to his friend.

By the time John has started complaining about the host of the week, Bill has finished his cup of coffee. When his phone buzzes, he doesn’t hesitate to glance down at it.

**Amelia Cooper-Phoenix: **Hey! It just so happens I am free today. Lucky you. See you at 10.

Initially, he’s confused. But once he’s opened his messenger app, he _remembers_. Before his frightful night of lame attempts at sleep, he had messaged Amelia to have coffee. Today. At 10 in the morning, at a local coffee shop. And he had sent this message at 12:02 AM.

_Shit. _

“What time do we need to be at the studio?” Bill interrupts John during his tyrant of how celebrities need to get off their high horses.

“_I _have to be there by 3. _You _have to be there by 5.”

Bill looks up immediately, glad to see John isn’t phased by his interruption. “Why do you go in earlier?” =

“Finishing touches on script before final dress rehearsals,” John says with a shrug.

“Oh. Well, that sucks.”

“That’s the job for you. Which doesn’t completely suck.”

“Did you ever pitch that one sketch we talked about?” Bill asks as he types back a message to Amelia.

**Bill Hader: **Lucky me. See you there :)

“What, Stefon? No, I might bring it up today. I still feel bad for making fun of that barista.”

“Don’t.”

John looks shocked at Bill, “Don’t bring up the sketch?”

“Don’t feel bad. The coffee he made me that day was _shit,” _Bill laughs, remembering the poor guy who had inspired the outrageous character they had began to write.

“Fair enough,” John agrees.

For the next hour, the two discuss the different sketches and scenarios they could pitch the character in. They both laugh till their lungs give out on multiple occasions, and for a moment, Bill forgets the night before. He forgets the sting of Maya’s words, _just some friend_. He doesn’t torture himself with images of the guy, Ryan, putting his arm around her. He doesn’t overthink why her happiness had fell flat when he entered the room. He’s not a basket case. He’s just some guy, on the couch with his roommate, his _friend_, making stupid jokes.

The bubble he allows to encompass him in that time pops when he spots the clock, reading _9:02_.

“Got somewhere to be, Hader?” John teases once Bill falls silent upon seeing the time.

“Actually, I do. Remember Amelia?”

“That’s a bad idea.”

“To you,” Bill stands from the couch. He doesn’t want to go through this argument for a second time in 24 hours.

“What outcome are you looking for, man?” John’s eyebrows scrunch, but he keeps his voice normal, unlike the day before.

“I’m just looking to get coffee with an old friend, John,” Bill stretches out his arms, avoiding John’s gaze, “It’s not a big deal.”

“You had coffee with an old friend last night, technically!” John points out, still prepared to die on this hill.

Bill flips him off before turning to walk to his room.

He knew John meant well. But after last night, he _really _needed to see Amelia. His motives may be different now, and John may be making a point now that the circumstances are different as well, but Bill has always been filled with bad ideas.

This wouldn’t be his worst.

———————————————

“Wait, so you’re actually on _live _television _every _Saturday night?”

“Yes! What else did you think I meant when I told you I landed the SNL gig?”

“I don’t know! I assumed you were one of the behind-the-scenes guys! I didn’t think you were an _actual _cast member!”

Bill laughs loudly, leaning back in his seat across from Amelia. They hadn’t stopped causing a commotion since they had arrived 30 minutes ago, but their laughter was contagious to the workers. Besides, the small coffee shop was no where near busy currently.

“Good to know you think so lowly of me,” Bill teases as he straightens back up and sips on the coffee in front of him. He had only gotten a small and filled at least a quarter of the cup with creamer, but he really was still going to be over-caffeinated for the show tonight.

“Can you blame me, hot shot?” Amelia rebuttals. Her own coffee was significantly larger than Bill’s as it was her first of the day. It was also something sweeter and fancier, a latte being Bill’s best guess.

“Me, a hot shot? Have you _seen _the size of the rock on your finger?”

On cue with Bill’s words, Amelia’s right hand shot over to her left ring finger, spinning and twiddling with her wedding ring. “Oh, you should have seen the wedding. I put the queen of England to shame.” 

“I guessed as much. You weren’t subtle in the Facebook photos of your _European _honeymoon,” Bill chuckled. It was nice, being this way with Amelia again. He had missed her more than he thought to admit.

“You and Maya both can’t seem to get over that,” Amelia began, not realizing the effect _her _name had on him before continuing, “It’s more common than you both make it out to be! I am not the first person to go to Paris for a honeymoon. It’s the city of _love, _for fucks sake!”

Bill’s ears are still ringing from her name.

“Hey, you okay?” Amelia asks after nearly a minute, immediately concerned when she realizes he hasn’t replied with a quick-witted response yet. “We don’t have to talk about my honeymoon.”

“No, it’s not that,” Bill reassures her. His hands are switching between clutching his coffee cup, and fiddling with each other, “It’s just… Uh…” he couldn’t seem to spit the words out, “You know, Maya.”

Amelia doesn’t reply at first. She’s giving him sad eyes, looking at him with all the sympathy in the world. All he sees is that her eyes are more of a hazel than Maya’s.

“You two really don’t talk anymore?” Amelia treads carefully with this question. She knows things that Bill doesn’t. She’s played both sides. She had been the one to hold her sister in her arms as she sobbed for her broken heart. She had been the one Bill called when he got a little _too _drunk after the breakup, talking him down from contacting Maya _just _yet.

She’d seen the damage done. And yet, she was still shocked they had never reconnected. 

“Does it really surprise you?” Bill’s voice wasn’t bitter, just soft and mournful, “It was a pretty messy breakup.”

“I don’t think I’d call it messy. Messy is screaming and fighting, making people choose sides and posting vague Facebook posts about the other with malicious intent. I should know,” Amelia nods as she says this, and Bill looks at her with confused eyes as she continues, “You guys didn’t do any of that. It was actually _scary _to see how…how…how much it lacked? How, it was just so…so…”

“Silent,” Bill finishes for her. He understands her loss for words.

“Yeah,” she trails off, reaching a hand out to place on Bill’s for comfort, “that’s one way to put it.”

“That’s the only way to put it. For me, at least.”

“You know, she had told me she was gonna contact you. Did she ever call? Message?”

This was news to Bill. He knew his eyes were widened as he replied, “No. Nothing.”

For a moment, Amelia remembers the day Maya declared this. It had been after a brunch with an old friend, right before Maya had moved to New York. It was the closest Amelia had ever been to getting the reason for the breakup out of Maya. “Did you ever reach out to her?”

“No,” Bill is familiar with the guilt that settles in the pit of his stomach. He felt it for months after the breakup. It had kept him up at night, wondering what would have happened if he had simply picked up the phone.

Amelia shot him with the sad smile. The one that said ‘well, what did you expect?’.

“I know it’s not all her fault,” Bill began, his finger trailing the rim of the coffee cup, “I take blame for it too.”

“Maybe you should reach out to her, like you did me. I can’t see a world where Maya wouldn’t want to see you,” Amelia almost wants to say ‘I can’t see a world without Maya and Bill, a tag team, a two-for-one deal’. But that world had been a reality for the past year and a half.

Bill can’t help but scoff before blurting out, “I saw her yesterday. At Starbucks. With her new guy.”

“Oh,” Amelia doesn’t know how to respond. Bill can tell Maya hasn’t mentioned the interaction to anyone. If she had, she would have told Amelia first.

“Yeah. At first, she didn’t even recognize me. And she seemed so _different_. She didn’t seem like the girl I met at improv, you know? But then we made jokes at each other… and… and she was laughing? I guess? But then that guy…” Bill trails off, acting like he’s trying to remember the name. But he knows the name.

“Ryan?” Amelia offers up.

“Yeah, Ryan. He came in and she just…I lost her. You know? Maybe I’m being dramatic. But it never set in. And seeing how he can affect her so easily, it reminded me that I lost her.”

Amelia makes a face briefly, as if the mere mention of Ryan is bitter. He’s suddenly reminded that while Ryan is new and shiny to him, he is old news to her.

“I don’t like Ryan,” Amelia says bluntly, sipping her latte before continuing and ignoring Bill’s shocked face, “It’s not that he’s a bad guy. He’s good enough.”

“Good enough?”

“Well, yeah. He has a reliable job. He lives in a nice apartment. He’s _mature_, as Maya so lovingly puts it. But I really think she means he’s safe.”

Bill thinks carefully before letting this conversation continue. This, _this_, is exactly why John scolded him. “Do you think she really loves him? Isn’t that all that really matters?”

“Of course. Except I don’t know if she really does, Bill. I hate that it feels like she’s settling.”

“Why would she stay with him if she’s not in love with him?”

“To prove a point,” Amelia says this while looking over Bill. They both know they’re thinking the same thing.

Bill still asks, “What point?”

“That she can live without you. Because…well, let’s face it… he’s…” Amelia trails off as if she’s scared to say it out loud. There’s a sense of betrayal to Maya. 

Bill knows this is the line John would warn him not to cross. It’s a bold assumption. Saying it out-loud could damn him in Maya’s eyes, especially when he has no business discussing her relationship. Nevertheless, he still whispers, “He’s the opposite of me.”

“_Exactly_.”

They let the words hang between them for a few minutes. Amelia is relieved to finally have someone to discuss this with, albeit that Bill isn’t the ideal person to do so with. And Bill is glad that he wasn’t crazy, that his first impression wasn’t fueled by jealousy.

“It’s nice to have someone agree about him, you know? Our mom’s up his ass,” Amelia breaks the silence, breaks the tension. Bill looks up at her, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“Mrs. Jane Phoenix being up the ass of one of Maya’s boyfriends? Did you expect any less?” Bill’s smile grows as he remembers Jane. She had absolutely _adored _Bill. The feeling had been mutual for Bill, as well. He could only wish all the happiness for that woman.

“I know, I know. I never understood that. My mom worshipped every guy Maya brought home, and cursed the ones _I _brought home!” Amelia exclaims. The tension from the previous conversation is fading.

“You just have shit taste.”

“I guess so. I’d argue Maya does too, but she found you. I’ll give credit where credit is due,” they both laugh and Bill’s chest only tightens slightly at the mention of Maya, “I’m just glad she liked Sean. The minute she gave me her seal of approval, I knew I had to marry him. It was a one in a million chance.”

The conversation over coffee continues light-heartedly. For the first time in 24 hours, Bill doesn’t think about the fact he may never see Maya again. 

———————————————

Saturday Night Live goes great.

The moment he had arrived to work earlier that evening, the caffeine from the morning had finally wore off. Bill hadn’t fell victim to crashing and burning, however, as pre-show nerves and adrenaline picked him right back up.

And now, as the adrenaline wears off for him in the middle of the afterparty, Bill relies on the shots of vodka and tequila to power him through what’s left in store for him this night.

“Wait so you’re from _Oklahoma_?” One of his drunk colleagues questions far too loudly.

“Yeah, whaddya have against Oklahoma?” Bill laughs right back, trying to steady himself on the stool he’s seated on. The room is blurred with an alcohol-induced haze, and Bill is _finally _reconsidering that fourth shot of tequila.

“Nothing! Nothing, I swear,” the guy says, throwing his hands up in a surrender motion as Bill desperately tries to recall his name, “But the Thunderbirds do royally suck.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Bill groans as he rolls his eyes. He was far too tipsy to entertain a conversation about sports.

“So, what, did you go to one of the state universities? A local community college? How’d you get out of there?”

“Actually, I went to school out in Arizona.”

Bill gauges the guy’s reaction as his eyes bulge. “No way! Which one?”

“Just the smaller, local ones. Arizona State was too fratty, NAU was too cold, and U of A is just for the fucking pre-meds,” Bill was hyper aware of the fact he was oversharing his opinions. No one needed a TED talk on why each Arizona university was inferior in Bill’s eyes.

Although, the oversharing did work on making everyone overlook the fact that Bill could, in fact, _not _recall the name of his college currently.

“Why the fuck would you go to _Arizona _for college? You went from one middle-of-nowhere to another. Arizona is Oklahoma but more dirt and cactus.” 

“Phoenix is one of the biggest cities in the country!”

“So you went for the size? Are you saying size _does _matter to you, Hader?”

Everyone at the table broke down into laughter as Bill blushed. He convinces himself it’s the alcohol infiltrating his bloodstream.

Once everyone had calmed down from the joke, the guy who had initiated the conversation suddenly locked eyes with Bill again. Even with the glaze that fell over them, Bill could see sincerity in them as he asked, “No, but for real. Did you have a real reason for choosing Arizona?”

“No,” Bill sighs dramatically, smiling with fondness at the thought of Arizona, “I mean, it was as close to California as I could get without selling organs on the black market. But, I don’t know, man. Something just _drew _me to it. It’s like the universe had a plan, and it involved getting me to Arizona, you know?”

As Bill said those words, he couldn’t _help _but think about Maya. He remembers all of his friends at home also questioning Arizona. He never could explain why he wanted to move to the middle of a desert that was filled with snakes, and scorpions, and heat advisories, and Republicans.

But then he had met Maya, and it had all clicked into place.

It suddenly made complete sense for him to be in Arizona. His eyes had met hers and everything just fell right into place for him. He hadn’t even learned her name but he knew she needed to be in his life.

“Yeah, I get it man,” the colleague sighs, interrupting Bill’s train of thought, “I feel that way sometimes whenever I crack open an ice cold beer!”

And with that, any hope of a sentimental atmosphere dissolved. Bill doesn’t immediately leave. He waits around, listening to the way the men at the table joke. As the beers become endless, so do the crude jokes. After a while, it’s unbearable and Bill needs to get away. 

His mind wanders to where John might be in the chaos of the afterparty as he makes his way to a balcony. There’s two people standing on the darker side of it, bundled up as they smoke.

Bill wishes he had a pack on him.

He considers asking to bum off the couple, but doesn’t think he could get a single word out from between the chattering of his teeth. He should have grabbed his jacket on his way outside.

He can’t stand still as he jitters on his side of the balcony, pulling out his phone and watching the screen light up in his shaking hand. The sudden burst of light takes him by surprise, and he can see movement in the corner of his eyes. He assumes he’s startled the two strangers as well.

He scrolls for a moment, going through his contacts. He could call or text John, figure out where the hell his roommate had gone off to. He also considered Amelia, but he doesn’t think she’d appreciate a drunk phone call at this time of night.

Without much doubt, his thumb hovered over the sliver of space between two contacts. The top one read ‘Madison from Production’ and the bottom one simply read ‘Max’. Neither of those people were overly special to him. But that space, not even a 16th of an inch, did matter to him.

It’s exactly where Maya’s contact would be, if he had it.

In the dead of the icy night, now alone as the couple had retreated back into warmth, Bill’s heart ached for what he once had. He had been doing just fine, avoiding reminders of her at all costs. But he was suddenly sensitive to the fact that she was _here_. She was in the city somewhere, curled up with _Ryan_. Her safety net. Her fall-back. The boy who her mother loved and her sister didn’t approve of. 

He wanted them meeting in the Starbucks the previous night to mean something. He didn’t want it to be some freak accident; everything in Bill’s being begged for it to be another one of the Universe’s plans. He wanted it to be something more, to be the first chapter of a long book.

He wanted the Universe to wait on the edge of its seat, anticipation overflowing, as it awaited the _moment. _

And if the moment came, he could only hope the Universe would smile as big as he would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in the great words of John Mulaney, we don't have time to unpack ALL of that ! but ! 
> 
> I'd like to make quick disclaimers: I am aware John and bill did not start at SNL at the same time. I don't care for the sake of my fic. I also have no clue how scheduling works for SNL. All I know is John was a writer, Bill was a proper cast member, and they work on snl ALL WEEK leading up to the show. also please don't make me address how I brought up Stefon I don't wanna talk about it. I have like one brain cell so please cut me some slack here thank u. 
> 
> ALSO. I'm from Arizona so me trashing the universities was 100% venting. NAU doesn't have a lot of flaws for me so I used the cold as an excuse peepee poopoo whatever. also that noodle conversation Maya and bill had was so much fun to write idc 
> 
> ANYWAYS enjoy!! thank you for reading!!! I'm kinda nervous about this chapter because I don't know how I feel about it but I love y'all especially everyone who's been commenting!!! I'm going to regret this long of an author's note when I get up tomorrow and it's not 2 am anymore!! oh well!! goodnight!


	6. chapter 6

Anxiety is always described as drowning.

For Maya Phoenix, however, that could not be further from the truth.

The water, whether it was pools or oceans, had always been a sense of _comfort. _She could never compare the feeling that gathered in her chest as a panic attack ensued to _that_.

To Maya, anxiety is an empty room. It is secluded and dark, lonesome and chilling. Every single thought bounces off the barren walls in a chaotic fashion. It is as if there is a crack somewhere in the room, maybe in the ceiling, maybe in the eastern corner. She cannot place it, but she knows that it is the source of all the oxygen leaking out of her lungs. And the room is not small; it’s huge. It’s gaping as a reminder of just how _alone _she is as cold air stalls her bones. There’s no door. There’s no windows. There’s just Maya, bloodied fists pounding against walls with no prevail. She can bruise herself all she wants in an attempt to knock down the walls, but at the end of the day, the empty room is her oldest home. _Anxiety _is Maya’s oldest home.

And she can feel those familiar hollow echoes in her rib cage, at 2 A.M, as she watches the clock tick on. Numb fingertips, shaking knees. The heater is on in the 24-hours Starbucks, but she can still see invisible clouds from her shallow breaths due to the cold that is icing her from the inside, out.

She doesn’t feel real as her subconscious slips back into the metaphorical room. Her mind refuses to process what had happened in the past few hours, especially her fight with Ryan. She’s envious of the few late-night strangers around her. They were all oblivious to the way that Maya’s reality had shattered that night. They couldn’t see the broken glass that surrounded Maya now, but she had still heard the crunch of it beneath her sneakers when she had walked into the coffee shop.

She could still hear it now, breaking in sync with her heart in her throat as her coffee goes cold.

———————————————

**seven hours earlier**

_Idiot._

It’s the only word that could ring through Maya’s ears as she muffled sobs into her coat. She was seated in the stairwell of Ryan’s apartment building. She had been for _fifteen _minutes.

The panic attack had been unexpected for her, despite the fact that it had been building itself up since she’d foolishly accepted the social invitation from her co-workers. She hadn’t cried like this in quite some time, though. She couldn’t remember the last time she had broken down over something as foolish as drinks with friends. It had to have been during college. The thought made her teeth ache as she sobbed more.

Regardless, she was aware of the fact that Ryan would be waiting for her in the apartment, and she couldn’t face him like that.

She knew her sister would scold her, but she had hid the ugly from Ryan for far too long. He couldn’t handle it so suddenly. It would be too abrupt, too significant of a change. Maya would hold it to equal levels of unsettling as finding out her birthday _wasn’t _October 13th, or her mother’s name _wasn’t _Jane. She couldn’t handle shaking the delicate foundation of their relationship like that just yet. 

A young man, most likely in his late-20s as well, passes by Maya on the stairs in a seeming rush. She meets his curious gaze briefly.

Maya sniffles, suddenly conscious of how pathetic she not only looks, but feels. Also, she’s finally aware of how she doesn’t have a single tissue on her. 

She realizes the footsteps from the young man have stopped, and turns slightly to find he’s stopped dead. Slowly, with very little confidence, he backtracks. Each step sends a shock of fear through Maya until he’s finally standing back in front of her, on the platform, staring her down.

“Well, that’s very New York of you.”

“Pardon me?” Maya hoarsely questions, not knowing whether or not to be offended by the man’s words.

The young man had seemed confident, although still nervous, when he initially had spoken. However, the moment Maya questions him, his face falls. He has a whimsical quality to him, as if he is either a child with all the hope in the world, or an old man who has seen war after war fought mercilessly. There is no in between. And Maya decides she trusts him.

“It’s all very New York, you know? Crying in a stairwell?” He tries to appear unfazed, but as Maya stays silent, his facade falls away, “Fuck, I’m sorry. I just… sorry, I saw you crying. And I was going to ignore it at first. But you looked like you needed a laugh and…a-and it was a stupid joke. Sorry.”

He’s about to begin his climb up the stairs again when Maya stops him, “Don’t apologize. It _was_ funny, you just caught me off guard.”

When he looks back down at her, she’s smiling. Tears still shine on her cheeks, but she’s smiling.

She sniffles again while looking him up and down. He’s fairly tall, and all leg. His hair is short and brown, tussled in a messy and frantic way that screams ‘I live in New York! The city that never sleeps! Neither do I!’. He’s got on chaotic layer after layer for an outfit. It begins with a white t-shirt, several wrinkles making it hard to tell what graphic design is on it. On top of that, Maya can make out a zip-up hoodie that is a deep navy blue. The final, top coat is more of a winter trench coat, in an off shade of black that _almost _matches the navy jacket.

Suddenly, he’s reaching into his pocket. For a moment, Maya is convinced this is it. This stranger is going to pull a gun on her and she’ll be another sad headline on New York Times.

Instead, he’s holds out a handkerchief. She’s dumbfounded.

“Don’t tell my roommate I still carry this shit around. Actually, you can just keep it. He gave me so much shit when he found out I had a collection of handkerchiefs, I _almost _got rid of them all. This is my last one, but honestly? It’s not worth the embarass-“ 

“Thank you,” Maya laughs softly, cutting off the poor guy as she grabs the handkerchief gently, “Your secret is safe with me.”

The man doesn’t look offended that Maya cut off his rant, and instead is grateful. She’s shocked when he looks around awkwardly before taking a seat beside her on the stairs.

“John.”

“Huh?”

“My name, it’s John.”

“Oh, I’m Maya.”

She turns from the stranger, from _John, _to blow her nose.

“You know, you look crazy familiar. Do you live here?” John questions as he digs into his pockets again. Maya isn’t fearful that he will be murdering her this time around.

“No, my boyfriend does. But…I, uh, I don’t visit often,” Maya says as she watches John pull out a pack of cigarettes, “I don’t think you’re allowed to smoke in here.”

“Probably not. But the only people who use this stairwell are people like you, having a midlife crisis, and people like me, who want to smoke without freezing their asses off,” John’s words are muffled around a cig as he places it in his mouth and lights it up with a bright, red lighter.

Maya can’t help but smile and nod, “Okay. That’s a fair argument.”

John holds out the cigarette towards Maya in an offering gesture, but she throws a hand up with a small grin.

“You don’t smoke?”

“I don’t smoke.”

“Sorry.”

“_Don’t be_.”

Maya notes that John doesn’t look like a greaser heart-throb while smoking. It’s in his demeanor. He isn’t trying to be cool, he’s just some idiot filling his lungs with chemicals he’ll regret in twenty years time. And it comforts Maya.

She’s suddenly glad she seeked refuge in the stairwell rather than in Ryan.

“So,” John leans back onto his elbows awkwardly and takes another drag, consciously blowing the smoke in the opposite direction of Maya’s face, “Feeling up to spilling your guts to a random stranger?”

_Everything_ about John is awkward. He’s one of the most awkward people she’s ever met, and suddenly, Maya is tempted to do just as he suggests. She thinks better of it, though, and instead replies, “I would, but I don’t think you have the time.”

“Why not?” John looks falsely offended.

“Well, you looked like you were in a rush before you stopped for me.”

John nods thoughtfully. His cigarette is nearly gone at this point, and the smell of it takes up the stairwell. It’s comforting to Maya. Actually, she’s finally coming down from the panic attack. If John’s plan was to help calm down Maya, a stranger, then it has worked.

“To be honest? Yeah, I was,” John begins before breaking to take a long drag of the cigarette. Immediately after, as he slowly breathes back out the smoke, he stubs it out on the concrete stair next to him, “I had been at work. But then I realized I left a really important script back here, so I had to come get it. I’m supposed to be rushing to get back, but fuck that.”

“A script? What are you, a movie producer? Director?”

Maya is confused as John lets out a laugh, “God, no. I work in live television.”

“Live television? Like what, Saturday Night Live?” 

“Yep.”

She thinks he’s joking for a moment, and awkwardly giggles. However, all laughter comes to a silence once Maya notices that he is very much serious. He’s _not_ joking.

“You’re not joking,” she deadpans, eyes trailing along his face.

“No, I’m not. Is that surprising?”

“If you’re on a show like that, shouldn’t I recognize you? Wouldn’t you be a celebrity? Like Will Ferrel, or Tina Fey, or-“

“Could you even name the current SNL cast?”

Maya draws up blank because no, she couldn’t. She never watched the late night show anymore, mainly due to Ryan not finding it very funny. “No.”

“Exactly. Anyways, I’m not a cast member. I’m a writer.” 

Maya falls silent, settling on a nod as a response. She’s sure if she knew John better, the conversation would have carried itself. They would have cracked a few jokes. Maya would bring up how she also wants to be a writer, possibly for TV, but never for comedy. There’d probably be a punchline about her awful sense of humor.

Or maybe not. Because Maya did not know John, and John did not know Maya.

“Well, I’m sure we both have somewhere better to be than on these stairs,” John says suddenly, standing up. Maya isn’t sure why, but she follows his actions without hesitation.

His (well, technically _hers _now) handkerchief is still balled up in her left hand. She uses the clean outside of it and rubs her cheeks, attempting to erase all evidence of her breakdown. She’s sure her cheeks are still blotchy and that her eyes may still have pink-tinted rims, but it’s worth a try.

“Yeah, my boyfriend’s probably waiting on me,” Maya agrees. She notes the way John leans down to pick up his cigarette butt before they walk up the stairs, shoving it into his coat pocket. She doesn’t comment.

As they make their way up the flight of stairs to the next landing, John speaks up. “Hey, not to over-step any boundaries here, but wouldn’t crying in the comfort of your boyfriend’s apartment, _with_ your boyfriend, be better than the stairs?”

Once on the landing, Maya heads for the door to properly enter back into the main building. John beats her to it, holding it open for her.

It’s then that she notices that the main building is significantly warmer than the stairwell. It hadn’t bothered her until that moment, though. “It’s not over-stepping boundaries. It’s a reasonable question. I just don’t have a reasonable answer.”

Maya quickly makes her way down the hallway, John trailing behind her. She can hear the elevator ding in the distance, and after a moment, creaks and groans signify that it is back on the move. She can’t tell if it is moving upwards or downwards, but it is moving. 

They stop as they reach Ryan’s door. Maya isn’t sure what to say, and John just stares for a moment. It’s driving him crazy, how familiar Maya is. He’s seen her _somewhere_, he knows it. And it was recently, too.

Eventually, John stops staring down Maya like a stalker and lets his eyes flicker to the door. “Shitty boyfriend?”

“No, not really.”

“‘Not really’ as in ‘I prefer the comfort of strangers over him’?”

It sends a prick to Maya’s heart, but she simply smiles sadly in return. She puts herself into John’s shoes, tries to see it from his point of view. She can see how bad it might look to a stranger.

“This is my stop,” she whispers as she begins to fumble with her keys. On the loop, right next to her own apartment key, sits a shining silver key to Ryan’s apartment. She suddenly remembers that Ryan’s keychain does _not _hold a key to _her _apartment.

“No shit, really?” John questions excitedly, his chin picking up as he nods further down the hall, “I live right down there. What are the odds, huh?”

“Small world,” Maya laughs, smiling genuinely.

“Small world, indeed. I’ll see you around, Maya,” John states, not questioning. It is as if it is a matter of fact. Humans breathe oxygen, the sky is blue, and John will see Maya around.

“See you around, John,” she sighs as he walks past her.

As Maya shoves her key into the lock carelessly, she smiles and her heart warms at the thought of the interaction that just took place.

———————————————

The night that takes place for Maya after her interaction with John isn’t ideal.

It feels familiar, but there is something off.

When she walks into the apartment, John’s curious questions still bounce around her head.

_Shitty boyfriend?_

No, Ryan wasn’t a shitty boyfriend. He was just the type of boyfriend that took one look at his girlfriend who had clearly been crying, only asked “Hey, you okay?”, and then accepted the pathetic nod that she musters up. He sees the tear tracks down her cheeks. He chooses not to press the issue.

Maya had called him earlier in the day to explain how they were going to get drinks with her co-workers. They insisted on finally meeting the elusive _Ryan, _the one who had sent flashy bouquets of flowers on Valentine’s Day and can skip the wait list at the fanciest restaurants in town.

Maya should be more enthusiastic, or proud, but she still feels the quiet echoes of anxiety in her chest as she retreats to the bathroom to fix up her makeup. She uses cold water to wash away the last reminders of her breakdown. She thinks of John again as she uses a q-tip to clean up the last bit of smudged mascara. 

_‘Not really’ as in ‘I prefer the comfort of strangers over him’?_

Ryan just wouldn’t get it. He lived in a world where his time was better spent on _real _problems. His girlfriend breaking down over stupid, childish things wasn’t a _real _problem. 

Once they’re ready, and the clock strikes 8, Ryan gets them a taxi to the bar. The car ride is painful; Ryan immediately becomes enamored with something on his phone as Maya has to awkwardly look out her window. At one point, his hand rests on top of hers between them, and his thumb rubs over her knuckles in a soothing motion. Except, it’s _not_ soothing to Maya. It feels distracted, and mimics the way he continues to flick through emails on his own phone.

Maya eventually settles on blaming the taxi driver for a bland choice in music.

They arrive at the bar, and find their ‘friends’ with ease. Maya watches the way as the women immediately begin fawning over Ryan. And he drinks it up, basking in the attention they give him.

_Wouldn’t crying in the comfort of your boyfriend’s apartment, with your boyfriend, be better than the stairs?_

Maya greets the friends, feeling smaller than ever. As they get ready to enter the bar, she feels like she should turn and fix Ryan. She should fret about a top botton that he simply can’t _stand _having fastened.

But she turns, and realizes that Ryan doesn’t need her to fret. He’s not even wearing a button-up. It’s a t-shirt, with a blazer on top. He’s pristine; there’s not a single wrinkle in sight, there’s not even a misplaced speck of lint.

And then they’re inside the bar, their group finds a table relatively easy, and the drinks start making rounds.

Ryan isn’t shy with alcohol. He does shots with the friends. It’s an obligation when you’re the life of the party. 

For a moment, Maya wishes he wasn’t. When she first met Ryan, she had adored the fact that despite being so _mature _in his daily life, he was able to have so much fun when out with friends. She used to watch him throw back whiskey neat and fantasize about the day he’d be hers.

She always imagined it differently, though. He’s still throwing back whiskey neat, and he still captures the attention of everyone in a room. But she had always pictured the way his hand would grip her’s under the table. Her fingers would fit between his and it would serve as a reminder that while other girls looked on with their hearts in their eyes, he was _hers_. He’d squeeze her hand, maybe once, maybe twice, and she’d feel at home. Their hands would sweat but neither would mind because they just wanted to feel _close._

The harsh reality was that he was now technically hers, and they still left a canyon between them while they were seated. His hand never found hers. Girls looked on with heart eyes, and Maya didn’t even feel like he was hers to begin with.

At some point, the conversation takes a turn. Previously, Ryan had commanded it. He told been telling stories that Maya had never found particularly funny, and everyone had been eating it up. But as a pause fell upon them, one of the girls, Rachel, jumped at the chance to compliment Ryan.

“God, Maya, _how _did you get so lucky?” Rachel slurred.

A knot formed in the pit of Maya’s stomach as she recognized this scene from somewhere. It’s as if she knew the script, so with a shy smile, she had turned to Ryan.

“Right? I _am _quite the catch!”

That’s not what he’s supposed to say. Maya is confused, taken back, because that _isn’t _the line. He should be saying how _he’s_ the lucky one, or diverging the conversation. He should be looking at her with a look of pure love, not barely flicking his eyes at her as they shine with overflowing cockiness.

And suddenly, Maya knows where the script is from. She has to lean back in her chair, nearly collapsing. Suddenly, all she sees in blue eyes. Blue eyes and a crooked smile, sweaty palms squeezing each other in a smokey bar, a plaid flannel buttoned up to the top.

She can’t do this right now.

The friend to her left, Blake, notices the shift in Maya’s demeanor and places a hand on her shoulder, “You okay?”

Maya turns her head to look at him. She needs to get out of here, to breathe fresh air. That was a ridiculous request in New York, but she stills stands and excuses herself.

Ryan finally looks at her. He doesn’t question where she’s going outloud. He just gazes at her with a confused look upon his face.

_Say something_, Maya internally begs. _Show me that you care. _

Ryan doesn’t say anything. Maya rushes away from the table and heads straight for the door, now feeling even more sick.

_Is_ Ryan a shitty boyfriend?

The icy air hits her between the eyes as tears burn at the back of her eyes. She hates this feeling, the feeling of crashing and burning. Her friends had been gushing how they thought her relationship was perfect not even five hours before. They didn’t even realize.

They didn’t realize how distant Ryan and Maya were. They didn’t see how out of sync they were, how out of tune they were as a couple. Or maybe they did, and they chose to stay blind. Looking the other way was what fairytale endings were made out of, weren’t they?

The bar door opens again behind Maya. She turns to face a confused Ryan. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” He asks.

“I want to go home,” she whispers.

They’re both drunk. But in this moment, Maya can see that Ryan is significantly more intoxicated than herself. He sways and leans with the breeze that flutters around them.

“What? Why?” He steps forward with his hands outward, reaching to grab Maya’s for the first time that night. Maya takes a step back to maintain the distance between them. He looks burned, “Aren’t you having a good time?”

“No!” Maya cries out, tired of biting her words. She knows she’s causing a scene on the street. She couldn’t care less.

Both of them look stunned as Maya begins to shake from the cold. Or at least, she tells herself it’s from the cold.

“I…Maya, seriously,” she hates the way he’s slurring, “I don’t want to go yet. We’ve only been here, what, a few hours?”

_A few hours_? _Only _a few hours?

“Well, I want to go home, Ryan,” she feels like a child. She hates that he’s making her feel like that.

“Why?”

She can’t answer him. So instead, she replies with a question she knows he cannot answer either. “Why did you say that?”

“Say what?”

“They asked me how I was so lucky, and you bragged about being a catch,” as she says the words outloud, Maya knows she might be overreacting for the average girlfriend. But the average girlfriend didn’t have her life recently interrupted by an ex-boyfriend who had been in this very scenario with her.

She had never been able to compare Ryan and Bill so clearly until this moment. It was as if the Universe had set up the scenario so perfectly, so clearly, to give Maya a chance. A sign.

Ryan hasn’t responded, so Maya decides to continue on. She can feel the first of many tears fall down her cheeks, freezing almost instantly.

“Why aren’t you holding my hand?” Ryan opens his mouth to respond, but Maya interrupts and doesn’t give him the chance, “Why didn’t you care when I came home crying today?”

“I did care! I asked if you were okay and you said you were!”

Maya laughs, bitter and humorless. “I nodded my head. I didn’t say a single word to you Ryan, did you not care? Do you care?” 

“I care! Listen, I’m too drunk right now, can you wait to have a god damn panic attack until we’re home?” He steps forward again, towards Maya, and she steps back once again. This time, though, she takes two steps to increase the distance as she processes what he’s said.

“Fuck you,” she breathes out. She wishes the words wouldn’t come out so wounded. She wanted them to hold a bite to them that would make Ryan flinch, not simply furrow his brows in confusion. 

“Maya, please.”

“No. Go have fun, find another warm body for the night. Since you’re such a _catch_, right?”

This sentence accomplishes what Maya wanted to with the ‘fuck you’. He looks as if she has slapped him on his right cheek, as if she has pistol whipped him. She watches the sting of her words spread across his face as his own words ring in her ears.

_Can you wait to have a god damn panic attack until we’re home?_

It’s confirming that she was right to cry in the stairwell. She was right to not come to him for comfort. She was right; he can’t handle the ugly.

They had had fights before. Small arguments here and there. It wasn’t an end-of-the-world experience, but this time felt different to Maya. Suddenly, they’re fighting, and Maya isn’t maintaining her mantra of how they’re happy. She’s happy, he’s happy, they’re happy.

They aren’t happy. They were at one point. Maybe they could be again, at some point. But right now, in this moment, Maya and Ryan are very much unhappy.

Maya turns and leaves without her winter coat. The cold is seeping through her sweater, and Ryan’s voice echoes as he calls out to her, but she doesn’t care right now. She needs to get away.

———————————————

And so Maya ends up in the 24 hour Starbucks, mind secluded into an empty room as she stares at the cracks in the opposite side of the booth. She’s frozen. She notes the bell ringing to signify another customer entering the store, the first new one besides herself in nearly an hour.

She watches memories from the night flash, while interruptions from the night all those years ago with Bill also appear to her, like a movie reel gone bad.

Finally, she lifts her head to see the person who had entered.

_Speak of the Devil_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO SORRY of how long this chapter took. I am aware it took a week, and it's probably not a very good chapter and probably boring, and it doesn't even have much bill in it, and I AM SORRY. I rewrote this 4 times. F O U R times. I'm still not sure how happy I am with this outcome but it's fine I'm fine we're fine. I have this story planned out already so everyone knows, it's just a matter of actually writing it which is easier said than done :-(
> 
> Anyways, I wanna shout out my irl best friend Audrey. This bitch is a major reason why this story is even happening and I want her to know I appreciate all the shit she puts up with from me, from sitting in an ihop in the middle of the night to plan this story out to listening to me constantly complaining while writing to constantly reading what I sent her when I need someone else's opinion before I post. So everyone just say THANK YOU AUDREY for this story lmao 
> 
> okay I need to stop writing long author's notes hopefully this chapter isn't the worst thing ever I am sorry


	7. chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, italics are past memories :-)

_“New York is _cold,”_ Maya whines, stretching herself out further to occupy even more space on the couch, as if that were possible._

_Bill chuckles, “So is Washington! Fuck it, I’m changing my answer to California. It’s always warm there, right?”_

_“What about earthquakes?”_

_“Earthquake-proof your house. Or just… don’t live near the earthquakes.”_

_Maya burst out laughing at Bill’s matter-of-fact tone. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”_

_“You don’t?”_

_“I don’t. I’m positive it doesn’t work like that.”_

_Bill sat at one end of the worn, leather couch, feet propped up on the rosewood coffee table in front of them. Originally, Maya had been sitting on the opposite end. However, as the hours had passed by during what was _originally_ a movie marathon, she had laid herself out and placed her feet in Bill’s lap. He didn’t really mind. Besides, the fluffy socks she had on were _really _soft, and he kept finding himself gliding his fingertips across the top of them._

_“Well, shit,” Bill sighs. The debate had originally begun as he had asked Maya where she’d like to live after college. It was a rare day off for them, where their schedules lined up perfectly. Neither had classes. Neither had work._

_“Besides, just because I said New York’s cold doesn’t mean I think it’s a bad answer,” Maya mumbles, fighting the small smile as she gauges Bill’s reaction._

_He quirks his head at this, _not _fighting _his _smile, “You’d follow me all the way to New York? Cold be damned?”_

_“Cold be damned,” she affirms, suddenly raising up from her position. Bill’s worried she’s getting up, possibly overwhelmed from the conversation, but is relieved as he realizes she’s simply flipping her position. She lets her head fall in his lap now, and his fingers immediately begin tracing shapes on her exposed shoulder._

_“You know,” Bill starts as he hand trails from her shoulder to her hair, “I’d follow you to Washington. If that’s what you really wanted.”_

_“No, you wouldn’t,” Maya replies casually as she turns onto her back, looking up at Bill with her big, brown eyes. His hand stills with his fingers against her scalp and he opens his mouth to argue his point, but she holds a finger up, “Not because of you. Because of _me_. _I _wouldn’t let you follow me to Washington. There’s nothing there for a big shot like yourself.”_

_“There would be if _you _were there.”_

_“And that’s why I’ll follow you to New York. All of my options work just as well there as they would in Washington.”_

_“I don’t want you to…to change your dream for me, you know?” Bill’s eyebrows furrowed as he continued to look down at her._

_Unlike Bill’s, Maya’s eyebrows shot up, “Touché.”_

_They’re both quiet as Bill’s fingers fall from Maya’s hair unintentionally. His hand doesn’t even have the chance to brush against the couch before she’s grabbed it up, immediately drawing circles onto his palm with her pointer finger until finally interlocking their fingers. Bill’s aware that it’s a losing battle; Maya’s options _are_ just as plentiful in New York as in Washington. He’d even argue they’re _more _plentiful for someone interested in either journalism or film such as herself._

_“I love you, you know that, right?” Maya asks softly, adverting her gaze to anywhere but Bill’s face, “I’ve already had a taste of Seattle. There’s nothing _really _out there for me. Besides, New York’s pretty during Christmas.”_

_Bill already braces himself for a smack to the chest as he cheesily replies, “_You’re _pretty during Christmas.”_

_“Oh, God. That’s officially your worst, cheesy pick up line you’ve ever used on me. I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit,” Maya groans, starting to sit up from his lap. Bill uses the hand that’s clasped with hers to press her back down, immediately leaning down to brush his nose against hers._

_“You like this cheese, admit it,” he teases._

_Maya goes to turn her face, but Bill captures her lips with his before she gets the chance. She tries to stay still, not encourage him, but ends up smiling into the kiss before finally bringing her hands up to his neck._

_After a few seconds, Bill pulls back. “See? Told you. Surrender to the cheese.”_

_“You ruined the moment, cheese master,” Maya says, trying to fake annoyance. Her face gives herself away, though. She’s never looked happier, more content, than in that moment, “You’re such a fucking idiot.”_

_There’s no malice in her words. In that moment, at 10 AM on a Friday, the Universe smiles. This is how it’s supposed to be. Maya grinning with her entire soul at the thought of spending a Christmas in New York with Bill, and Bill planning away their future as if there’s no other choice for him. Because there isn’t. For him, Maya is it._

_The innocence and naivety in the air is infectious._

_———————————————_

_Speak of the Devil_.

It was as if his eyes had known she’d be in the Starbucks before Bill could process it.

Bill stops dead in his tracks once he spots her. He’s barely entered the coffee shop when it happens.

He had walked in with his head down, beginning the routine of expelling all relics of Maya from his mind, trying to push down any thought of her and their encounter from the previous weekend. He knew he had just been torturing himself when he returned every day since. The coffee was not _that _good. He had just told himself the baristas were friendlier here than his old coffee stop, and that it didn’t matter how burnt his simple order turned out, at least they smiled at him.

But just as he had begun his routine of distraction, he lifted his head and scanned the _mostly _empty shop. He saw a middle-aged gentlemen on one side of the store, sitting at one of the taller tables near the windows. There wasn’t much to see out the window, but that didn’t matter. The man was far too fascinated in the newspaper before him. And then, he scanned across to the opposing side, and saw her.

She wasn’t looking at him. She looked like a ghost, cold eyes focused in across to the opposite side of the booth she occupied, _alone_. Her hands were tucked away in her lap, but he would be willing to bet money that she was nervously picking at the skin of her knuckles. A coffee was placed before her on the table, but she made no move to drink it. She looked like she had been crying. It was hard to tell from a distance, but Bill swore he saw faded trails of mascara along her cheeks.

For a moment, he just stares. His heart aches for how upset she looks, how broken she looks. He knows it’s not his place to feel those things for her anymore, but he does. He can’t imagine a time where he wouldn’t burn the world down to make her smile. 

As if she were reading his thoughts, her big, brown eyes flicker up to meet his. She looks surprised. There’s a lifeline flickering behind her pupils that wasn’t there mere seconds before. It takes his breath away as he forces his feet to move forward, carrying him one step at a time to the counter, never breaking eye contact.

Eventually, he has to look away to order his coffee. A venti black coffee, space for cream. He glances over his shoulder as he clumsily hands over a ten dollar bill to the barista. Maya’s no longer looking at him, but her demeanor has changed completely.

She’s waiting.

Bill considers not approaching her, of leaving her alone and pretending they _didn’t _make clear eye contact. But in the five minutes it takes to receive his order, he decides he’s going to talk to her.

He has to. He’s spent the past year pleading and bargaining with the Universe, begging for one chance, one moment, to fix whatever had broken between them. He’s aware two chance encounters in a coffee shop won’t mend the time loss, the tears shed, the hearts bruised. But he’s not sure if he’s even looking for healing at the moment. He thinks he just misses her.

He’s made his way to the small counter that holds a variety of creamers and sugars, beginning to attempt to make the coffee something he can stomach. He’s learned how many small cups of creamer it takes, how many packets of sugar he needs. It’s a number he’s not proud to admit.

_Does she even want to talk to him? Where was her boyfriend? Why was she crying? Why was she in a Starbucks at 2 AM? Why was _he _in a Starbucks at 2 AM?_

He could only answer his final question as he finished stirring his coffee. He had just finished up SNL and ditched the after party. There wasn’t any dramatic reason other than he wanted coffee after a long night at work.

Before he can think much more about it, he’s forcing himself to walk to the booth she occupies. He hesitates for a second and she looks up at him. It isn’t sudden, there’s is no ‘snapping her head up’, it’s as if she had expected him.

“This seat taken?” He asks, motioning to the opposite side of the booth to her.

She doesn’t vocally answer him, merely shaking her head.

He slides into the booth carefully, and feels the cold of the worn material seep through his jeans. And then he’s in front of her. Their eyes are locked and he feels like he should say something. Up this close, he clearly sees he was right; she does have mascara trails running down her cheeks. But she’s cried enough that they’ve faded significantly.

Bill opens his mouth to speak, not knowing what words will come out quite yet, when Maya beats him to the punch.

“Do you remember when we were together and I had told you how I used to like to sit at the bottom of swimming pools in the summer?”

The question catches him off guard. He wants to tell her that of course he remembers, he could even recall the exact situation. He had asked her what her favorite childhood memory was on their third date, and she’d explained the phenomenon of sitting at the bottom of her childhood pool. He could remember how hard it was to keep a neutral face, how she had panicked and called herself a ‘weirdo’ (_“Oh my god, is that weird? I’m so sorry, I’m a fucking weirdo.”_) and how he had reassured her that she was in fact _not _weird.

“Yeah, I do,” he answers after one too many beats of silence.

“I think that’s what love feels like.”

“Sitting at the bottom of a pool?”

“Yeah, I guess. Am I wrong?”

He could have never prepared himself for a conversation like this, truthfully. But looking at Maya, she looked like a broken, porcelain doll. And he doesn’t think he’d ever have the right tools to properly fix her back to what she once was. However, entertaining this discussion could be a start.

“No, I don’t think you’re wrong, that’s what love feels like to you,” he begins, pausing and taking a quick sip of his coffee, “Love feels different to everyone. Like, even for one person, no two loves are the same, you know? Your first love and your last love shouldn’t feel the same, I don’t think.”

Maya nods slowly. “What does love feel like to you?”

“Nostalgia.”

She crinkles her nose, looking up at him. “What?”

“Nostalgia. Like, remembering your favorite childhood memory. Or your favorite season. I dunno, it’s just this gut feeling,” he explains, suddenly feeling like an idiot, “It’s kinda stupid.”

“No…No, I don’t think that’s stupid. Better than almost unintentionally drowning yourself,” she reassures him as a smile crosses her lips.

“I guess.”

They fall quiet again. Maya’s hands are no longer secluded in her lap, but wrapped around her coffee cup. She still makes no move to drink it as Bill breaks the brief silence.

“Have you been crying?”

It’s Maya’s turn to be taken back. “What?”

“You just… you look like you’ve been crying,” Bill tries to avoid taking back his words. He’s not stupid. He _knows_ she’s been crying, even if she tries to deny it.

She stares him down for a second, and he _almost _retracts the question when she finally answers, “Yes.”

“Oh, why?” Bill’s pushing it. He’s aware that he’s overstepping boundaries.

“I don’t really want to talk about it. Why are you getting coffee so late?” Maya finally brings her coffee up to her lips and takes a small sip. She’s realized that she hasn’t done such since she bought it nearly an hour ago.

“I could ask you the same,” Bill responds.

Maya smiles softly. When she had first spotted Bill, she had braced herself for impact. She knew he’d come talk to her, and she was terrified of what they’d even talk about. Even moreso, however, she was terrified of _how _they’d talk. Her fear of an awkwardness had settled as she saw Bill so at ease.

“I just got off from work. Figured it wouldn’t hurt to get a cup of joe,” Bill finally says as he sees Maya lost in thought.

“You _just _got off from work? Where do you work?” She questions as she snaps back to the reality in front of her.

“Remember how I used to talk about auditioning for SNL?”

“_Holy shit_. Did you?”

Bill doesn’t respond, just allowing a growing smile to answer for him.

When he had first entertained auditioning, a lot of Bill’s friends weren’t overly supportive. He understood where they had been coming from, but it left him feeling vulnerable and defeated as he endured lecture after lecture about how _funny _he’d have to be, how _unlikely _of a gig it was. The only person who had ever entertained the idea by his side, chest full of pride and overflowing with support, was _Maya_. He’d gingerly brought it up, wondering if his spirit could take the rejection from his lover, and was shocked when she’d_ bloomed _with encouragement. She held the same level of enthusiasm as he did for her small assignments such as scripts or short stories for her classes.

Maya never told him she had any doubts. Because she didn’t, which was strange as she had _anxiety, _and doubts were her second nature. But she’d always found Bill to be funny, and talented, and _capable_. He’d _always _been capable of captivating a room. Not like Ryan, but in a completely different way. A way that never left anyone feeling lonely.

Besides, she’d always figured she’d be around to pick up the pieces in the unlikely event that it _didn’t _work out.

“You got the gig? You got on SNL?” Despite how small Maya’s voice was, the excitement was overwhelming. She was grinning ear to ear and radiated that same pride from over a year ago.

“I did,” Bill spoke just as softly. But he was grinning just as largely. He recalled how everyone else had reacted when he informed them that he had aced his audition, that he was officially going to be a SNL cast member. Everyone who had previously tried to lecture him to death had suddenly congratulated him. That were all so shocked, full of gasps and claps on the back. Maya had a different look in her eyes than they did, however. It was one that said ‘_I told you so_’. Because despite the surprise that still laced her voice, she had always known this as the outcome. It wasn’t so much surprise that he’d gotten his dream job, but pure _happiness_. She was _happy _for him when everyone else was _shocked _for him. This was what had been missing when he’d gotten the best news of his life. _She _was what was missing, whether it be romantic or platonic.

“Well, don’t just sit there,” she says, “Tell me everything. Don’t hold back, pretty boy.”

Maya’s breath caught as she let the nickname slip without thought. She was petrified at Bill’s reaction, but relieved immediately as he just smiled. Both their hearts swelled. It was the only ounce of encouragement he needed as he began to launch into all his tales he had accumulated in the short time spent at the exciting job.

Maya stopped thinking about Ryan, and their hurtful fight. She didn’t think about how things were never _this _easy with him. Bill didn’t think about the way she’d broken his heart just over a year ago, and the radio silence that had followed. All that mattered in that moment was that they were here and they were talking and they were laughing. It wasn’t necessarily the healing they needed, but it was a breath of fresh air for the two of them.

Amelia’s words rang in Bill’s ears.

_I can’t see a world where Maya wouldn’t want to see you._

Maybe Amelia was right. Maybe one week ago, at this same coffee shop, they hadn’t been living in that world. But maybe they could again. Maybe, _just _maybe, the two of them could find their way back to that world. A world where Maya wants to see Bill. A world where Bill knows Maya, and Maya knows Bill.

A universe smiling.

——————————————

“What time is it?” Maya questions mid-yawn as she realizes that people have began to trickle into the shop more consistently. It felt as if it had been hours, and despite Bill’s exciting work stories taking up most of the time, there had been a few silly debates. At one point, Maya had to defend herself against Bill’s merciless teasing for drinking a pumpkin spice latte. Another argument had been the “who versus whom” debate.

Regardless, as the conversation flowed between them, Bill watched the life breathe back into Maya. The girl he had spotted when he first walked in versus the one sat before him now were two _very _different people.

Bill pulls out his phone and checks it briefly. “Holy shit.”

“What?”

“It’s 4:32.”

Maya’s stomached dropped. “Really?”

Bill nodded and flashed his phone in her direction. She watched as the illuminated numbers on the screen blinked to now show 4:33 AM.

The past two and a half hours had flown over their heads. It hadn’t been intentional, but Maya and Bill had missed each other. They had a lot to say. They both knew they hadn’t discussed the more important things, the million and one elephants in the room, but the air between them had cleared.

Maya stomach growls on cue as she looks to where she can see workers setting out fresh pastries and similar. She hadn’t even properly ate dinner the night before.

Bill immediately notices her quick glance over her shoulder as she settles her eyes back onto him. Both their coffee cups are empty, and they have been for a while now.His eyes flicker between Maya and the counter a few times. “Hungry?”

“A little,” Maya admits, ashamed grin with downcast eyes crossing her face. Her hand immediately falls to the pocket of her jeans where her spare cash resides. She’s sure she has enough for a muffin, or even a scone.

Bill’s reading her thoughts again, though, and shakes his head, “Don’t get anything from here.

“Excuse me?”

“We can both admit that if they burn the coffee this badly, they probably burn the muffins too.”

Maya immediately hushes him, looking shocked at his bluntness. “Bill! Shut up, they can definitely hear you.”

Bill just laughs at her quiet, angry whispering. “They don’t care. They’re self-aware.”

“That’s not an excuse for being _rude_,” Maya continues to scold him, laying back into her side of the booth and crossing her arms.

“You’re right. If either of our coffee’s taste like bitter almond next time, I’ll take the blame for the cyanide poisoning,” Bill chides as he drums his fingers around one of the water marks on the table between them, “Do you want to go get a real breakfast somewhere?”

He expects Maya to come to her senses, to realize where she is and who she’s with. He expects her to retract back into herself and for his moment to evaporate right before his eyes. She proves him wrong.

“It’s not even 5 AM, what’s open right now?”

“You’re kidding, right? This is New York.”

“You can take the girl out of Phoenix…” Maya jokes lightly, trailing off.

“But you can’t take the Phoenix out of the girl. Especially when it’s her last name,” they erupt into laughter as Bill finishes her thought, “No, but seriously. I have a place in mind.”

Maya flashes a surprised face, “You do?”

“Yep.”

“It better not be IHOP.”

Bill immediately falls silent and leans back into his own seat to mimic Maya’s position. As he stares off into space, she realizes he _was _going to say IHOP.

“Oh my God, is IHOP the only breakfast place you can think of that’s open?” She gasps, biting a smile.

“Hush. I’m trying to think of a different breakfast place that isn’t based on pancakes.”

Maya stifles her giggles as Bill continues to appear deep in thought. Eventually, he snaps his finger and looks back to her excitedly, leaning up against the table again.

“I know a different place.”

“Not an IHOP?”

“Nope, not an IHOP.”

“Well, then lead the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS TOOK FOREVER I'M SORRY. Enjoy this surprisingly angst-free chapter, though!! I'll admit I just really needed some fluff. Also, not that anyone cares, but that memory at the beginning is about a year into their relationship. Chapter 1 was about six months into it. :-)


	8. chapter 8

“Waffle House? Really?” Maya questions as she turns to face Bill, who is lit up like a little boy.

“_Yes, _really.”

His excitement is illuminating the street alongside the cars that have begun their morning commute. The sky is still a blue-gray, as if the cold is a blanket that asks morning to wait just _five more minutes_.

The walk from the Starbucks to the Waffle House hadn’t been terribly long, and had been fairly uneventful. Maya had complained about how long it had taken her to figure out that New York was a grid system when she had first moved here. Bill had teased her mercilessly, bragging that it hadn’t even taken him a full week to be able to navigate the city with ease. At one point, he had noted the way Maya kept her arms wrapped tightly around her waist as she shivered uncontrollably, and ending up offering her his winter coat. She had tried to deny his offer at first, but after he made the point of listing all the layers he had on beyond the coat, she accepted it. She still had it wrapped tightly around her body, the lingering heat from Bill still embed in the threads warming her.

Bill walked ahead of Maya, pulling open the door and waving her in with a smile, “After you.”

“Ever the gentleman,” she hums as she brushes past him into the significantly warmer restaurant. She pulls open the second door herself, and the few staff members call out greetings.

“Welcome to Waffle House! Go ahead and pick a seat anywhere!” One of the waitresses calls out as she wipes down menus. Bill immediately heads straight to a booth in the far corner. Maya is about to complain about the windows against the booth, and how it’ll leave them both frozen, but Bill takes the seat pressed against both windows. One to his back, and one to his left. Maya slides into the booth opposite of him, her left side facing the rest of the restaurant.

It’s a narrow building, a long rectangle. When Maya looks out to the space, she can immediately see behind the counter and to where the cook stands, cleaning the large grill. There’s a tall counter with tall stools to match, and shorter counters with basic chairs. There’s several booths behind Maya, and she had spotted a few on the other side of the store, past the counters.

Despite the plentiful seats, the Waffle House was empty. Bill and Maya were the only customers. There were two waitresses, one who had retreated to the back that was hidden from Maya, and one cook. The three employees all looked fairly young.

The waitress that had originally greeted them walked over, bright smile plastered on her face. Even with her cheery attitude, Maya could make out bags under her eyes, messily hidden with layers of fading concealer.

“How you folks doin’ tonight? Or.. Well, actually I guess, this morning?” 

Bill smiles and greets her in return as Maya glances quickly out the window beside her, “Good! How are you?”

“Not too bad,” she responds. As she leans over to place a menu in front of her, Maya notes her name tag that reads ‘Sara’, “Just tired. What can I get started for drinks?”

They both order waters, and Sara whisks herself off with the promise of returning with just that.

“I’m shocked you’re not a regular,” Maya whispers, sucking in a breath when the wrist of her skin grazes the cold table.

“Oh, I am,” Bill corrects her, mocking the way she raises her eyebrows as he explains, “Rotating staff.”

“Ah. Okay, fair,” she breathes as she scans the menu once over, immediately deciding on what she’ll order.

Sara returns with their waters, as well as a pen and notepad. “Alright, do you folks need another minute, or are we set to order?”

“I’m ready,” Maya chimes, glancing over at Bill who nods in agreement, “I’ll just have a chocolate chip waffle, please.”

She can hear Bill try to cover his chuckle with a cough as Sara writes down her order, smiling kindly. “And for you, sir?”

“Could I get the hash brown bowl, and add sausage gravy?”

“Yeah, absolutely,” the waitress begins to gather the two menus after she scribbles down Bill’s order.

“Wait,” Maya speaks up just as Sara is turning to leave, “is there anyway to get an orange juice with that?”

She’s so polite, so mousey, that the waitress gives her a thumbs up and makes note of the orange juice without a thread of annoyance. It reminds Bill of the way he saw her when they had first met; polite, with firewood patiently waiting to be lit.

“You know you’re gonna have to spare me a bite of that ‘hashbrown bowl’, right?” She whips around in her seat to face him again, the quiet demeanor mystifying before him.

“I’d expect nothing less,” he drawls as he subconsciously twiddles his thumbs, “So, how long have you lived in New York, again?”

Maya flashes her signature smile, “About a year. What about you?”

“Really?_ I’ve_ been here just over a year,” he says as if the time has flown by in a way he can’t recount. He knows damn well he’s lived in New York city for exactly one year and three months.

Maya looks shocked, “Talk about a small world.”

“Yeah,” Bill breathlessly laughs, taking a sip of his water as Maya pinches her own straw and begins to twirl it around her ice cubes, “Shocker that we never ran into each other before.”

Maya doesn’t answer him, but he can see the way her smile falters. A certain sadness turns up the corner of her mouth. He’s positive it’s the same sadness that throbs in the back of his head, that’s settled in his throat. It’s been easy to forget that this was their rekindling. There was a time loss between them, memories made where the other wasn’t in the background. There’s new photographs that cover the worn ones in both their books, and neither feature the other.

“Me and Ryan had a fight,” Maya sighs unexpectedly. The sound of their food being cooked in the background serves as white noise as Bill looks at her, shocked.

“What?”

“I fought with Ryan. That’s why I was at Starbucks.”

“Oh,” Bill’s mouth falls open as if he’d like to say more, but he doesn’t. He’s scared to push too far and for Maya to close herself off again.

“It was for such a stupid reason. I was being over-dramatic and too sensitive. I left him at a bar with friends, and didn’t even bother to get my phone, or my wallet, or my jacket.”

“I’m sure it’s not stupid if it made you forget your _jacket _when it’s freezing out,” Bill reassures her, “Besides, don’t be apologetic for having big emotions. It’s better than no emotions.”

Maya laughs bitterly, “Not when the emotions are too big for my own good.”

“Are they too big for _your _own good, or _Ryan’s _own good?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Bill doesn’t get the chance to answer Maya, because Sara walks over with their food.

“Okay, one chocolate chip waffle and orange juice, and one hash brown bowl!” She exclaims with far too much enthusiasm for the time of day as she places the food in front of the two of them, turning to ask Maya directly, “Is the normal syrup all good, or would you prefer sugar free?”

“Normal is fine,” Maya politely replies. The tension has returned to her shoulders, Bill realizes.

As the waitress turns and ducks behind the counter, grabbing a syrup for their table, Maya takes a sip of her orange juice. The syrup is sat on the edge of the table and she forces a smile, nodding to signify her thanks.

Bill watches her butter the waffle before drizzling the syrup, and their silence is ringing in his ears. He’s overstepped the boundaries, no doubt. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, don’t apologize. You’re right.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. I need to be more honest with him,” Maya insists before taking a bite of waffle into her mouth. Bill just nods, unable to shake the guilt.

She should be pissed at him. She should scream and yell about how it’s not his business, make a scene like she has before with Amelia. She doesn’t understand her own willingness to let the topic go, when she’s spent the past year seeing the world as a boxing ring for her and anyone who challenges her love for Ryan.

Bill also sits in his confusion as he begins to eat his own food. While Maya is mewling over the fact she should be mad at him, he is considering why_ he_ isn’t mad at _her_. She broke his heart, left him silently. He never got a reason. There hadn’t been a big explanation yet in their time. Despite the fact he had initially told himself this was no time for healing, he desperately wanted to ask her all the questions at the tip of his tongue.

_What did I do? Why did you do it? Was it easy, pushing me away and leaving me in the dust? Did you ever dial my number in the middle of the night too, but never caught the nerve to hit ‘call’?_

Neither of them ever find their voice. It is just Bill, Maya, the smell of waffles, and silence. It’s something _familiar_ for the two of them.

Bill is surprised when Maya quietly picks up one of the unused forks on their table, and brings it to the brim of his bowl. His eyes shoot up to see her leaning up onto the table slightly, outstretched arm with a forgiving smile.

He nods, chuckling to himself as he pushes the bowl closer to her, “Thief.”

She doesn’t acknowledge his comment, gasping after the bite, “Holy fuck, that’s good!”

“I _know,_” Bill mocks her as he uses a napkin to clean up some of the gravy that had dropped onto the table between them, “You know, considering it’s what _I _ordered.”

“Hmph,” Maya huffs out around another bite she’s already stolen from Bill’s plate.

In a swift motion, he’s taken his fork to her waffle, getting his own stolen bite.

“Hey!”

“So it’s okay when _you _steal _my _food, but not vice versa?”

“I asked! Nicely!”

“Tapping my bowl with a fork is _not _asking nicely.”

Despite the bickering, they continue their meal with both of their plates towards the center of the table with easy access to one another. Bill can’t count how many bites of waffle he’s eaten, and when Maya sneaks her own bites of his, he turns a blind eye. It’s quiet again, but not tense. This feels _right._

Sara comes over once she notices the empty plates, holding their ticket in her hand. “There’s no rush, just whenever you’re ready!”

“Oh, no, they’re gonna be sepera-“

Bill cuts Maya off as he holds out his hand for the ticket. “Thank you!”

Sara shoots an apologetic look to Maya as she places the ticket in Bill’s hand, gathering up their dirty dishes quickly and leaving the two to argue amongst themselves.

“How much was mine?” Maya questions. She knows she still has the cash in her jean pocket.

“Don’t worry about it,” Bill responds nonchalantly, pulling his wallet from his pocket and standing up.

“_Bill_.”

“_Maya_.”

It’s the first time he’s properly said her name the entire time. It sends waves of comfort through her chest, cold water weaving between her ribs.

“I’m not kidding. How much was _mine_?”

“Yeah,” Bill shakes his head and looks down at her with a grin, “I’m not kidding either.”

With that, he walks away from her towards the front counter. She processes it a little too slow for her liking, immediately jumping up and chasing after him as quickly as possible without looking like a maniac.

“_William Thomas Hader_.”

“_Maya Ophelia Phoenix._”

Bill is smiling, clearly entertained, while Maya is glaring at him.

“You’re not paying for my food,” she insists. When Sara walks over to the register in front of them, she turns to her, “Do not let him pay for my food.”

“Oh, but I am,” Bill’s voice is almost singing as he hands over a debit card with their ticket. Sara gingerly takes it and shrugs at Maya, looking incredibly guilty.

Maya stops her arguing, deciding Sara shouldn’t have to be caught in the middle of them. Nothing can stop her from huffing and crossing her arms dramatically though, stepping off to the side from the two of them like a toddler preparing for a tantrum. The tantrum never comes though, as Maya’s eyes divert anywhere _but _where Sara is currently swiping Bill’s card, paying for her ridiculously early breakfast.

Suddenly, Maya has an idea.

“Do you have a pen I could borrow?” She asks from her spot on the sidelines, looking at Sara and avoiding Bill’s questioning gaze.

Sara immediately pats her apron and abandons Bill’s card, retrieving a ballpoint pen. “Does this work?”

“Yes.”

Bill opens his mouth to say something, but Maya already has taken the pen from Sara’s hand and hurried over to one of the napkins containers on the shorter counter several feet away.

He watches as she pulls a napkin out and scribbles something down on the center of it. She’s far enough he can’t see exactly what she’s written, but it’s no novel, as she quickly finishes and folds the napkin carefully before putting it into her his coat pocket.

“You guys are such a cute couple,” Sara sighs, and Bill nearly jumps out of his skin as he realizes she’s still there. She places his receipt with a pen to sign it with in front of him, and he smiles sincerely at the doe eyes she’s making between him and Maya.

“Oh, we’re not together.”

“No?”

“No,” he assures with a heavy tongue. He wants to say more, spill his guts to the waitress. He’d like to reassure her that she isn’t far off, that they _had been _together. Their love was past tense, but you could still see its smudges all over his hands.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Sara apologizes as Bill messily signs off his name and adds a tip to the bill.

He shakes his head, giving her the bill and taking his card back, “Don’t be.”

“Ready?” Maya popped back up beside Bill, smiling at the two. Sara still notices the change in her smile when she allowed her gaze to travel from her to Bill, the way it met her eyes and grew in the most minute fashion.

Any stranger could see the love all over the page between the two of them.

“Yeah,” Bill shoves his card into his wallet and tucks it back into his jean pockets, “Let’s go.”

“Have a great day!” Sara politely says as she waves the two off.

Maya smiles as she lifts her own hand in her direction. “You too!”

Bill simply nods and waves as they exit the restaurant. The sun has finally raised, but everything still lingers in a shade of early morning blues. They don’t talk at first, simply falling into step next each other as they navigate sidewalks now filled with a significant amount of people. It’s comfortable. Their walk, for a good 10 minutes, is only filled with cracks in the sidewalk and car horns in the street.

At one point, Maya lets her cheek fall against the popped collar of Bill’s jacket that still weighed heavy on her shoulders. She can still smell Bill’s cologne on it, and is suddenly hit with just how _bad _of a girlfriend she’s being. The thought of contacting Ryan hadn’t crossed her mind for several hours. She’d had the opportunity plenty of times; any time in the past three hours or so, she could have asked Bill to use his phone and call Ryan, explain where she was and that she wasn’t dead. If he didn’t answer, she could have left a voicemail, or sent a text.

The reality is Maya didn’t do this simply because she didn’t want to.

It was insanely childish, but she was still hurt. She was aware Bill was being used as a bandaid for the wounds her fight with Ryan had caused. It couldn’t last forever when she needed stitches. But stitches meant going home, facing Ryan again and accepting the consequences of the scene she had caused last night.

It was selfish, but she wanted to postpone the situation as long as possible.

“So, in theory, if I got us lost, would you notice?” Bill asks with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets.

Maya stops dead, not expecting the question. It wasn’t a good idea, as someone immediately almost walked into her, sidestepping and cursing her under their breath.

“What?” Bill glances at her curiously.

“Are you trying to get us lost right now?” Maya more so demands rather than questions.

“_No._ That was just _theoretical,_” Bill’s smile is wide as he moves next to her, causing many of the fellow pedestrians around them to grumble about the block they’ve caused, “Besides, it’s a grid system. You said it yourself!”

“Okay, then how far are we from the Starbucks?”

They weren’t near any particular intersection, so Bill just shrugs after a moment. “Probably a block or so. You could look it up on your phone if you really don’t trust m-“

He cuts himself off, remembering she had mentioned previously that she _didn’t _have her phone.

“Yeah, dumb ass,” Maya laughs, finally moving forward in the direction they had previously been walking. Bill continues to occupy the space beside her, matching her pace.

“Sorry,” he apologizes sheepishly, pulling his hoodie jacket around his body tighter as he tries to shove his hands even deeper into the pockets.

Maya glances at him for a moment, laughing, “We have got to stop that.”

“What?”

“Apologizing.”

“I’m…sorry?”

Maya laughs at the irony taking place in their conversation, “We’ve been on this weird cycle of one of us apologizing, and the other telling us to not be sorry.”

“It’s a habit, I guess,” Bill nods, realizing that they _had _apologized to each other an obscene amount in the few hours they’d been together.

He also realized that unfortunately, neither had apologized for the one thing they should. The reason they hadn’t seen each other in over a year.

“Well, let’s kick it,” Maya says with a certain confidence that Bill has always loved in her. The confidence of someone who doesn’t _believe _in ‘easier said than done’, the confidence that had fueled Bill to audition for Saturday Night Live even after her presence in his life had faded. It’s a blind faith. The kind that causes people to go to church every Sunday, or to drink the koolaid.

They finally arrive in front of the Starbucks in which they had originally met earlier that night (or day, depending on how you look at it). It’s busier now, people coming and going for a morning caffeine fix.

“Well… I guess this is goodbye,” Maya’s voice raises in an almost-questioning tone. They’ve tucked themselves into the space in front of one of the large windows of the Starbucks, avoiding interrupting the flow of pedestrians.

“Yeah?” Bill asks, “Goodbye, or see you later?”

“If we keep meeting the way we have been…” Maya trails off as she begins to shrug off Bill’s coat, “Then it’s just a see you later.”

He immediately motions for her to keep the coat on, but she’s already thrusting it towards him. “You’re going to freeze to death.”

“My place isn’t that far from here,” she reassures him, pushing the coat against his chest with a persistence he couldn’t challenge.

“If I see any headlines about a woman freezing to death within the next few hours, I’m personally raising you from the dead just to kill you myself for being stubborn.”

“Promise?”

“That’s not funny. But yes, I do promise. Don’t die,” Bill insists as he takes the coat from her.

“I won’t,” she shoots him a smile that warms his bones, “Bye, Bill.”

“Bye Maya,” he whispers back. And just like that, she’s leaving. She’s walking away, shooting a smile over her right shoulder to him, and then blending into the New York crowd.

He decides to shrug back on his coat. It’s warm and smells like her, just as she had a year prior: it’s vanilla and cinnamon and the smell of _home_. He shoves his hands into the pockets on instinct, but is shocked when he feels various papers in the left one. Immediately, his fist grabs whatever has been left in it and pulls it out. He uncurls his fist to find two things: the first is a ten dollar bill, and the second is a Waffle House napkin.

In the center of the napkin, there’s a row of ten neat numbers that are vaguely familiar to Bill, and a messy smiley face that mimics the same one that graces his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've officially decided to start updating this story every Tuesday/Wednesday! This is when I usually finish chapters anyway so please don't be alarmed if I haven't posted during the week!! thank you for reading, as always!!!!!! :-)


	9. chapter 9

“I was up all night worried sick!”

“_Oh, _I’m _sure _you were up all night sick, but I think you’re confusing worry with whiskey.”

Maya’s small kitchen has become a fighting ring for the past hour. In one corner, there was Maya, angrily scrubbing _vomit _from one of her larger cooking pots. And in the other, there was Ryan, nursing a ginger ale with a bottle of Aleve at his side.

“You couldn’t have called? You ran off into a _huge _city, and didn’t have any of your shit.”

“I’m a big girl, Ryan. I survived. Will you just let it go?”

The scalding water begins leaving her hands pink but she scrubs harder. The vomit was long gone, having washed away down her drain when the fight first began. She had been using the sponge as a distraction from looking Ryan in the eyes, when she knows he’s right.

“No. I’m not just ‘letting it go’,” Ryan gestures with air quotations before standing up and walking closer to Maya, “I wanna talk about why you were ups-“

Ryan is interrupted by his phone buzzing violently on the table where he left it. Maya didn’t even flinch, or pay it any mind. She already knew who was calling.

“Are you going to get that?”

“What? No, we’re having a conversation.”

“It’s probably your work.”

“Work can wait.”

“Well, that’s a first,” Maya laughs bitterly as she finally shuts off the water and places the pan on her drying rack. She spins around to face Ryan with pure irritation flaming in her eyes. Ryan doesn’t look away, willing to get burned in that moment. His phone finally falls silent against mahogany.

“Is it?” It sounds less like a question on Ryan’s part, and more like a threat. A threat of just how long this quarrel could last between them.

“You’ve _always _put work above me, Ryan, and I’ve _always _sat patiently and let it happen.”

“No one _asked _you to. If it bothers you so much, why didn’t you ever speak up about it?”

“I never had the chan-“ Maya is cut short mid-exclamation, her point being further proven.

Ryan’s phone is buzzing again, the agitated vibrations echoing through the dimly lit kitchen.

“Answer it,” Maya insists through gritted teeth.

Ryan opens his mouth, about to protest again, before finally letting his eyes glance at who’s calling. As Maya reads his face, she already knows she was correct; his work _is_ calling.

“Maya, I—“ he pauses, noticing the glare Maya is sending his way, “Just give me a minute? Okay? I’m not done talking about this yet," Ryan sighs, clearly frustrated as he grabs his phone and runs off down the hall, presumably to Maya’s room.

Once she’s left alone with her thoughts, Maya _almost _breaks down. She’s holding together by a thin thread as she finally leans onto her kitchen counter and presses the palms of her hands into her eyes _hard._

_Why?_ Just 2 hours previously, she had been giddy with a certain underlying happiness that had been a stranger for the past year. And now she was wrecked with guilt, anger creeping into her bones. She hadn’t expected to come home and have a fight so hateful. She had planned on having a conversation filled with apologies, fueled by good intentions. She had planned on coming home to a relationship that was not failing, but instead was begging to thrive as she prepared herself to come clean and bathe Ryan in honesty.

Instead, she arrived home to a pissed, hungover Ryan and a pot full of puke.

Neither had been in a pleasant mood since, to say the least.

Maya’s phone buzzed in the pocket of the hoodie she’d slipped on when she first got home, and she hesitates. She hates how badly she’s hoping for it to be Bill. For a moment, all she wants to do is be back on the Waffle House, sneaking bites of hash brown bowl and fighting over who’s paying the check. She looks up to the hallway Ryan had retreated down. She could hear his voice faintly, unable to make out any concrete words. It was safe to assume, as it was with all work calls, he’d be occupied for a while.

And so she checks her phone. She expects a text from her mother, or a status update from her sister.

Instead, she sees a new text message from an unsaved number.

**+1 (917) 346 - 5539:** Hey. It bill.

Maya’s mouth falls open, her hand shaking, as she rereads the text several times. She nearly jumps out of her skin when her phone chimes again.

**+1 (917) 346 - 5539: ***It’s

**+1 (917) 346 - 5539: ***Bill

**+1 (917) 346 - 5539: **Shit, sorry. I suck at texting.

As the shock wears off, Maya begins to laugh at his texts. She’s in the middle of typing back a message (_You’re a fucking idiot_) when Ryan enters the room again.

“Who’s that?” He asks. He seems less tense than when he left the room, but Maya knew that didn’t mean she’d be avoiding the conflict boiling between them. It was still bound to blow up in their faces.

“A friend.”

“Which friend?”

“Didn’t you want to talk?”

Ryan isn’t expecting the chilling tone in Maya’s voice, the tell-tale sign that her patience is wearing exceedingly thin. “Yeah, yeah. I do.”

Maya brushes past him, not even looking him into the eyes, and heads straight for her couch. She doesn’t think she could handle this talk without sitting down. Ryan follows her helplessly, waiting for her to motion for him to begin the discussion. He doesn’t want to fight; he’s internally begging Maya to see his side of the battle.

“I’m sorry I’ve been acting like such a dick.”

“Okay.”

Maya is biting her tongue, avoiding her urge to take the fall for it all. He doesn’t even _know _about Bill. She’s flooded with her guilt once more as she realizes that even if Ryan has been ‘a dick’, she hadn’t been girlfriend of the year.

“But you can’t just hit me with those truth-bombs, you know? You can’t bottle all those feelings up from me. I need to _know _when you feel like I don’t care enough. I need to _know _when you feel like I put work over you.”

His words settle uncomfortable against her spine, her head spinning from guilt. “I get that, but you’re not always the easiest to talk to.”

“Then teach me _how _to be someone you can talk to. Don’t lock me out, _please_.”

“That’s not something you teach, Ry,” Maya sighs, exasperated. Ryan is looking at her with puppy dog eyes, playing on every one of her heart strings. She’s angry, but guilty. She’s tired, but hopeful. She’s fought too long, too hard, to give it all up now, “You have to be patient with me, too. I need to learn to be honest. God, I-I _know _I have to learn to be more honest. These things take time.”

“We’ve been together a year. How much time do these things take, exactly?”

Maya is left speechless. It’s easy to forget that her and Ryan have been together for so long, because it feels as if they have frozen in time. They have hit a standstill in their relationship that is impossible to surpass.

“Yeah, but-“

“Why were you so upset yesterday?”

“What?”

“Something set you off, what was it?” Ryan is persistent, determined to get to the root of the argument that started it all.

“I just had a long day.”

“We constantly have long days, May. You’ve never stormed off from me like that over a long day.”

She could feel the irritation, the anger, burning in the back of her throat again. “They told me that I’m lucky, and you just played along.”

“Was I not supposed to?”

“I don’t know! I don’t fucking _know_, Ryan. I just know it fucking _hurt_.”

_His _eyes are now cold. “Is that all?”

There’s a beat of silence. Maya weighs the consequences of coming completely clean. She could be truthful, she could be honest, explain to him all her anxieties and little ticks. She could solve a large portion of their relationship problems right in this moment, if she could just find her voice.

“Yeah, that’s all.”

They both can hear the reality in her words. Whispers of, '_no, that’s no where near all’ _echo in the space between them. But Ryan is tired of fighting and Maya is all bloodied, scared that the next punch her lover sends will warrant her a one way ticket to the nearest hospital.

This was the issue between them. Maya was a child; she was terrified of disappointing him or being scolded for her honesty. And Ryan had his hands tied. He couldn’t battle for a relationship if Maya couldn’t explain the issues to him to begin with. He couldn’t love in the dark, holding out his hands in front of him with blind faith in her.

“Okay,” Ryan sighs, walking over to the loveseat instead of the seat next to Maya on the couch, “Where did you even go last night?”

“Just for coffee,” she bites back the whole truth, knowing it’ll dig her deeper into her own grave.

“Just for coffee?” Ryan clearly doesn’t believe her. He’d be stupid to.

The ringing of another nail in her coffin invades the space as she affirms, “Just for coffee.”

The words left unspoken and lack of communication in the room is haunting.

———————————————

The rest of Maya’s Sunday is a daze once Ryan finally leaves. They never resolve their issues, and Ryan uses the excuse of work to escape the suffocating space that is her apartment. It’s stifling, overwhelming, for both of them.

However, once Ryan is long gone, Maya feels a weight lift from her chest. Her lungs finally expand and scream out in joy at the taste of air that _isn’t_ flooded with tension. She occupies her couch, laptop open in front of her on the coffee table as she gets a head start on the week’s work. There’s a few new emails that she glances over, but nothing urgent catches her attention as she caves to her exhaustion and properly curls up onto her couch.

When Maya first decided she was going to major in journalism, it had been an impulsive decision. She hadn’t ever really thought much about life in that way. After high school, each new step was thought out mere seconds before she took it. She’d always loved writing and photography; journalism just made _sense _for Maya. Everyone around her had agreed. It had taken her a while to decide, though. Graduation came and went, and soon Maya had allowed her single gap year to double in size without second thoughts. She spent the two years convincing everyone around her that she was simply ‘finding herself’, but that had always been a bullshit excuse. The truth was simple; Maya was undecided, and terrified of the prospect of admitting that.

So she did what every hurricane of a lost high school graduate does, and got as far away from her hometown as her short supply of money would allow. Amelia was in Washington, so Maya threw herself to Seattle. It was New York in a smaller bite (and with more rain, which Maya adored). She had assumed Seattle would have made the decision regarding her major easier, but it did the opposite. As it turns out, spending the weekends with your sister and her then-boyfriend, watching film after film, can confuse a girl. Maya fell in love with cinematography, debating the weight of scripts with the boy that occupied her sister’s couch, and finding herself lost in storylines that were not her own.

It was confusing, and exciting, and everything Maya didn’t need.

It was why after 5 long years at community college, Maya avoided Seattle at all costs. New York might be too big of a bite to handle for her, and she might still be chewing down her decision, but it was too little, too late to be indecisive now.

So now, Maya laid half asleep on her couch, in an apartment one size too small, staring down emails and debating how many coffee runs she’d have to go on in that next week as an intern at a local magazine. It’d be enough to drive _anyone _into a haze.

At one point, she’d finally sent a text in response to Bill and properly saved his contact to her phone. At another point, she’d turned on the TV and flipped through the endless, droning channels until she’d stumbled upon a midday rerun of House, M.D. She allows the voices of Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard fill the silence of her apartment as she attempted to catch up what sleep she had lost the previous night.

Maya manages to drift into the blank capacity between sleep and consciousness, body weightless with heavy lids and acutely aware eardrums, when her laptop springs to life with a notification from Skype. Amelia is calling her.

“Oh, fuck,” she mumbles as she sits upright immediately, pulling her chiming computer forward on the table and rubbing at the sleep in her eyes half-hazardly.

She clicks ‘accept’ on the call.

“Finally! I’ve been texting you all day! What time is it, there? You look like you just woke up.”

Maya smiles at her sister’s ramblings, feeling a bit home sick as she watches her sister’s hazel eyes squint at her through the screen. It was hard to forget that there was an entire span of a country between them, especially on days like this.

“Hello to you, too, Lia! I’m doing just fine, thanks for asking!”

“Fuck off. Seriously. Isn’t today one of your days off?”

Maya nods, averting her gaze from the screen to the skin of her knuckles. “Yeah, it is.”

“Then why haven’t you been answering my texts? They’re kind of important.”

“Oh, yeah? Like what?”

“I needed to know what flavor of margarita to order at happy hour.”

“Anything strawberry or watermelon.”

“See? I needed that insight! I ordered a weird green apple one and regretted it!”

Both girls fall into laughter as Maya begins to feel more fully awake. She misses her sister, terribly. And she’d never admit it, but she missed Washington. She could hear thunder in the background of Lia’s end of the call and suddenly wishes that there was an inch of rain outside her apartment building currently, instead of the thin layers of ice she could hardly navigate.

“You’re a lost cause, I guess, Lia,” Maya giggles as she grabs her TV remote to turn off House mid-rant about how stupid his team of doctors were, “Anyways, why were you _really _calling?”

Amelia grins in a way that spoke trouble. “I wanted to know what you’re doing for Christmas this year.”

“Christmas? Jesus, Lia. That’s like…what, almost two months away? I don’t even know what I’m having for dinner tonight and that’s not even two _hours _away.”

“It’s less than two months, actually,” Amelia corrects her sister, “Jake and I were kind of thinking about…Well, maybe, possibly…Hosting Christmas at our new house?”

Amelia’s words were less of a statement to Maya, tone raising at the end as if it were more of a question. Maya takes a moment, pondering her options for a while. She takes a little too long for comfort, though, as Amelia immediately pipes up again.

“You don’t have to! It was just an idea, and I know New York beats out Washington in the grand scheme of everyth-“

“I wasn’t going to say no,” Maya interrupts, biting her lip in consideration again, “I just…me and Ryan…W-we haven’t even _discussed _our holiday plans.”

“He’s welcome, too! The more the merrier,” Amelia reassures her sister.

Maya appreciates her sister in this moment. In times like this, it reminds them how similar yet unlike they are. Where as Maya maintained cool-toned blonde hair clipped to her shoulders, it was hard to pinpoint Amelia’s last haircut as hers fell to her waist. Amelia had embraced the shade of auburn hair they’d both naturally inherited from their mother, a shade of honey that matched her slightly lighter eyes. Maya had always been jealous of that; her eyes were as dark as night at times, only shining in a color similar to her sister’s when the sunlight blinded her _just _right. Personality wise, it wasn’t necessarily a pessimist versus optimist situation for the girls. Lia had always simply been more whimsical, and Maya maintained a sense of realism as a shield from disappointment. They were neither opposites nor mirror-images of the other.

Maya decides she’ll be returning home this Christmas. With or without Ryan.

“We’ll come. I’ll talk to Ryan, but we’ll come,” Maya finally promises her sister.

“Great!” Amelia exclaims and leans back, clapping her hands. The audio and video don’t quite align, either one or the other clearly lagging, “So I’m assuming you guys got your shit together?”

“What?”

“When I was out there, you hesitated even having _dinner _with him, Mop.”

“Don’t call me Mop.”

“Then answer the question. Did you ever show him the bad, the dirty?”

Maya pauses, trying to prepare for the scolding she’s about to receive. “No.”

“No?”

“Nope. And it blew up in my face. Please don’t say ‘I told you so’.”

Amelia is giving her sister a look that transpires through their screens, through the distance. It sends a shot of warmth through Maya’s chest. It isn’t quite sympathy, and it isn’t quite cockiness. Maya can’t put a finger on the word to describe it, but her closest bet would be simple; comfort.

“Mop,” Amelia begins in a soft, sympathetic voice.

“Lia,” Maya whines, willing to plead away her childhood nickname. Normally, she wouldn’t have been so insistent on ridding it from their conversation. But normally, she wasn’t in touch with the one other person who would tease her with that nickname.

“Are you guys fighting?

“This time, yeah. It’s a long story.”

“Good, because I have time to fill. Let me hear it, hon.”

With Amelia’s encouraging words, Maya recounts the night to her sister. The stairwell panic attack, the miscommunication, the parallels of the night to her night so long ago with Bill. At the mention of Bill, Maya sees a slight change of expression in her sister’s face. She resumes her hums and nods with a caring face, however, without missing a beat. Near the end of her explanation, Maya feels a buzzing coming from between the cushions next to her. She throws a blind hand out without pausing her words, patting and digging until she comes in contact with her phone that buzzes yet again.

“It’s just…It’s so stupid. I know I’m overreacting. But why do I feel the need to hide my feelings from him, Lia? There’s got to be some sort of blame on him if I feel—“ Maya pauses once she glances down to see text notifications from Bill.

“If you feel…?” Amelia questions, trying to encourage Maya to continue. Maya pays her no mind as she immediately opens the texts to read them.

**Bill: **Hey, are you free tomorrow? Me and some snl people are hosting a party. Didn’t know if u wanted to come.

**Bill: **No pressure. Ryan is also invited. Unless u don’t want him there. Again no pressure.

“Okay, seriously, what the hell are you smiling at like that? Did you win the lottery?”

**Maya: **A party on a Monday night?

“No..I-uh, sorry! It’s nothing,” Maya quickly puts the phone down, trying to focus on her conversation with Amelia and _not _on her response to Bill, “What was I saying, again?”

“You were rationalizing putting blame on Ryan, too.”

“Oh! Yeah, like I was saying, if I feel like I can’t talk to him, there was to be something _he’s_ done as well, right?”

Amelia hums and shrugs simultaneously, “Not necessarily. You might just have trust issues, Mop.”

“_Please _stop with that nickname. You haven’t called me by it this much since…” Maya trails off, holding back from finishing that sentence. _Since I was with Bill_.

Amelia flushes as she recognizes what Maya is referring to, “I dunno, nostalgia?”

“Nostalgia? Really?”

“It’s not nearly as weird as the fact that you just avoided talking about Bill, when ten minutes ago you were willing to compare a date night with him to a date night with Ryan.”

“That’t not weird.”

“It is. You’ve avoided even just his _name _for like, a year. Why are we making this sudden progress?” Amelia is right, and it irritates Maya. She might be pissed, but she has no realistic come back to that when Amelia is completely right.

“I—Nostalgia,” Maya spits out in an unconvincing tone.

“Bullshit!” Amelia cries out, leaning in closer to her screen, “I _know _you’re both in New York. The only reason you’d be talking about him like that again is if some sort of closure had happ-“

“I’m sorry, _what?_”

Amelia is white as a ghost as she processes her slip up. Maya is staring down her sister on screen, not necessarily mad, but shocked.

“I said, you’d only talk about him if you got clo-“

“You know I’m not talking about that. You knew he was in New York?” Maya’s voice is soft as Amelia picks up her lack of discomfort and anger. There’s only a touch of betrayal, and unfamiliar sadness. Amelia is lost on how to respond.

“I…Maya, he was on national television. How did you _not _know?”

“I don’t watch SNL anymore. Ryan hates it.” _And I couldn’t watch it when all it did was remind me of him._

“Ryan dictates what shows you watch, now?”

“Stop changing the fucking subject,” Maya desperately scolds her sister, “Have you talked to him?”

“Have _you_?”

“Jesus Christ, you’ve talked to him!” Maya whisper-shouts despite being alone in her own apartment. She doesn’t even have to worry about Ryan; he doesn’t have a key.

“More like, Jesus Christ, _you’ve _talked to him!” Amelia doesn’t mask her shouts at all, a wide smile hitting her face as she realizes she’s right. Maya’s blush tells her everything she needs to know, “Does Ryan know?”

“_No_. Did you even listen to me telling you about our fight? I’m _not _going to casually mention I’ve been playing reunion with my fucking ex-boyfriend.”

Both girls gape at each other. Maya’s heart pounds, mostly in shock rather than betrayal, at how Amelia could so casually _know _that Bill was within proximity to Maya and _not _bring it up.

“When did it happen?” Amelia finally questions. She’s still smiling, mores smirking at this point.

“I, uh,” Maya stutters on her words, embarrassed, “Last night.”

Maya’s voice is a whisper, and Amelia leans in closer. “Come again?”

“I said, _last night_.”

“Oh.”

Maya doesn’t allow Amelia to think to long about her statement, immediately returning the same intrusive energy to her, “When did _you two _see each other again?”

“When I was visiting. We got coffee,” Amelia answers bluntly, “Did you purposefully run into him?”

“No. Why didn’t you tell me you were meeting him for coffee?”

“We both know why. And how exactly did it happen, then?”

“I left out the part where I was able to be out all night because he found me at Starbucks. You don’t have to treat my feelings like glass, you know.”

“I know. It’s just seemed like a sensitive topic for you. And how do you manage to run into an ex at _Starbucks_, of all places?”

“I just did, okay?” Maya sighs harshly, getting increasingly frustrated at the exchange, “Can we drop it?”

The echo of a door shutting sounds at Amelia’s end of the call, “For now, yes. But only because Jacob’s home.”

_“Because who’s home?”_ A voice calls out.

“You, idiot!” Amelia yells out, adjusting slightly out of frame for a moment. Once she leans back to have her face visible on camera, Jacob appears at her side, waving at Maya.

“Hey, boss May!” Jacob’s voice is loud and clear through her laptop speaker, almost painfully so.

Maya groans at the stupid nickname Jacob had so affectionately given her, “Remind me why you call me that again?”

“It’s boss man, but instead of man, it’s your name! Sort of, at least,” Jacob rambles as he clearly becomes occupied with off screen.

“Hmph.”

“C’mon, you love it! Oh, also, did Lia already invite you out for Christmas?”

Maya smiles as her brother-in-law wanders off-screen, still staying nearby enough to hear off Maya’s answer, “I told her we’d come. I have to talk to Ryan, still, though. So no promises it’ll be more than me.”

“Aw, hopefully Ry-man comes!” Both Amelia and Maya cringes at Jacob’s awful nickname, “He seems cool. You know, from what I’ve seen of him during calls.”

“He is cool” Maya reassures as Amelia grumbles “That’s debatable”.

Maya rolls her eyes as Amelia says something to Jacob. She doesn’t pay much attention to the short exchange they have before Jacob seemingly leaves the room, as her phone buzzes against her thigh.

**Bill: **Yes. A party on a Monday night. U in or not?

Maya forces herself to pause, make Bill wait on her response. She can still hear her sister talking to Jacob over the call, so she counts to five before typing a response.

**Maya:** I’m in. I’ve gotta see what a party on a Monday night w the SNL cast looks like.

Bill’s response comes alarmingly quickly.

**Bill:** Not the entire cast. Unless you’re only coming if the entire cast is there. In that case, the entire cast will be there. Okay. I’ll shut up now. Here’s the address. It’ll start around 6. We’re senior citizens who want to be in bed by 9.

The next notification is the full address to the party, and Maya locks her phone while holding back laughter at Bill’s obnoxiously long text.

“Who are you texting? Seriously?” Amelia questions on screen, smiling at her sister’s giddiness.

“No one.”

A beat of silence. A moment of realization for Amelia. “Holy shit, are you texting Bill?”

“No.”

“Then why are you smiling so damn hard at that guess?”

“I’ve gotta go, Lia. We can talk later this week about Christmas plans!”

“Ma-“ Maya hits the ‘end call’ button before Amelia can even protest.

Once the silence settles with the dust of her apartment, Maya smiles to herself. She’s aware she should stress about getting Ryan to agree to a party after their fight, or about making plans to get to Washington and not going broke for Christmas, but she’s not.

She’s happy. She isn’t sure why, but her happiness swells in her chest and warms her bones better than her heater ever could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes I missed my deadline by a day but I worked 7 days in a row please forgive me :-( we've got some spicy content coming up the next few chapters y'all so hold out!!


	10. chapter 10

Bill is terribly bored. His boredom itches on the back of his hand and the base of his spine, causing him to fidget to no ends during the meeting. He should be focusing on whatever the speaker of the room is pitching, but it’s a Monday. Meetings on Mondays were _never _Bill’s forte.

So, instead of participating in the glorified meet and greet, Bill thinks. He thinks about how annoying the clock across the room is as it ticks each second away. He thinks about the party that’s been planned for the night, and briefly tries to recall whether Kristen or Andy was going to bring the ice for the drinks. He thinks about how they really should stop having these meetings in Lorne Michaels’ office, the space far too small for the 30 or so people attempting to pile in.

Most of all, however, Bill thinks about Maya.

He doesn’t mean to. It’s never intentional. But sitting in a lackluster office with the smell of stale coffee and flickering overhead light lulling him to sleep, he thinks of her. They hadn’t texted since the previous day when he’d provided the details for the small party. He hadn’t even told anyone he was inviting her (and technically Ryan); he simply did it on a whim. It was an easy excuse to see her again. Somehow, he’d convinced himself he had to see her again, or the world would implode on him.

It’s hard to remind himself that there’s mountains between them. At the Starbucks, these challenges weren’t a reality to either of them. They were just Bill&Maya, Maya&Bill, no explanation needed. They played pretend as if Maya wasn’t going home to Ryan at the end of the night, and Bill wasn’t going to home to a broken heart at the end of the night. It had been simple, easy, warm. But Bill wasn’t at a Starbucks with Maya at 3 AM anymore. He was at work, on a Monday, thinking about ways to survive the party tonight without getting completely shit-faced.

“Are you even listening?” John hisses from Bill’s right side, leaning in towards him from his seat on the couch.

“Would you kill me if I said no?”

“No. Lorne might, though.”

“Make sure they have confetti canons at my funeral, then.”

Both comedians stifle their snickers as a few eyes at the meeting flick towards them. No one comments on their laughter, and soon the meeting is wrapped up.

“Okay,” Lorne Michaels stands at his desk, gathering up papers he had been taking notes on, “Don’t forget our musical guest this week is Beck. Keep watch for my emails regarding which sketches we’ll be going forward with. Besides that, everyone is alright to go. Except Hugh, please stay behind.”

Everyone in the room abides by Lorne’s words. As Bill and John stand up from the couch they had occupied for the entirety of the meeting, Bill turns to his roommate, grinning.

“Okay, so who’s in charge of the monologue this week?” Bill questions immediately.

“Not you, asshole. Probably not me either, to be fair. Seth gave me a stank eye.”

“Cry me a river. You really don’t want to be involved in _the _Hugh Laurie’s monologue?” Bill bites back as they squeeze themselves out of the doorway. These hallways were _not _built for this many people to occupy the same space at once.

“Never said I didn’t want to be involved,” John points out, “Besides, your infatuation with the man is kind of odd. House M.D. is not even tha-“

“Do not finish that sentence, Mulaney,” Bill threatens, turning another corner to be faced with a significantly more open hallway, “Also, it’s not just House M.D. The man is a musician, _and _a comedian. I respect it.”

“I don’t know if I would call having wet dreams about a man respectfu-“ John is cut off once again, not by Bill this time, but instead by running into a mass that can be assumed to be one of their co-workers.

“Ow, fuck man, that…” John trails off once he meets the eyes of Seth Meyers.

“Whose wet dreams are we discussing?” He asks the two men, holding a fairly straight face with traces of confusion.

John doesn’t respond, simply staring and holding back nervous laughter, so Bill dives in to save them. “Judy Garland’s. Do you think she had one for every divorce?”

“Now that’s just tasteless, Hader,” Seth reprimands despite smiling, shaking his head between the two of them.

“Hey, you asked,” Bill throws up his hands, leaning backwards in a joking manner.

“I guess I did. By the way, what the hell was up with both of your pitches in the meeting?” Seth questions, and Bill is now the one left stunned. He didn’t expect anyone to actually _ask _about their ridiculous sketches they’d made up on the spot without serious intentions of taking them to the live show.

Finally, John springs back to life and normalcy, “Hey, you expect us _not _to make medical jokes for a man who plays a doctor on TV?”

“Oh, no. I did expect medical references. I just expected them to be _funny_.”

“Look me in the eyes and tell me that a person having a kink for unspeakable acts being performed on them during major medical procedures _isn’t _funny.”

Bill is biting back his laughter in a painful manner from beside John, watching the breakage of amusement on Seth’s face as well as their eyes meet; they both know that John had _not _pitched the sketch that politely during the meeting.

“Actually, I think your words during the meeting were ‘girl gets boyfriend’s cum on her heart during open-heart surgery’,” Seth’s words are all it takes for the three to lose it. They know it’s not necessarily the funniest thing proposed during one of their Monday meetings, but recalling the look on both Lorne’s and Hugh’s face when John had seriously suggested the sketch was enough to turn their ribs tough with laughter.

“That was comedy _gold_. Read it and weep when Lorne chooses it to air,” John defends his sketch, knowing it was complete bullshit but holding an air of arrogance.

“Good luck getting past the censors, buddy,” Bill scoffs, side-stepping to let another writer by in the hall.

Seth nods thoughtfully before shrugging at John, “He’s right. Some of our funniest ideas never see the light of day because of censorship.”

“But that’s show business, baby!” John sarcastically exclaims, awkwardly throwing his hands out just past his waist at his sides, shaking them in an awful attempt at jazz hands.

Seth opens his mouth to reply just as someone down the hall calls out his name. He whips around to locate the source of it, but is instead met with another disembodied calling of his names.

He turns back to face John and Bill, “Sorry, you guys mind?”

“Not at all. See you around, Meyers,” Bill waves him off, John partially hidden behind his shoulder. Once Seth has gotten all the way down the hall and turned the corner, Bill turns to look at John.

He’s about ask _why _John was hiding, but John beats him to the punch. “He fucking _terrifies _me.”

“Really? I mean, I knew you blacklisted him from the party tonight, but why does he scare you?”

“Because I just _know _that in my future, there’ll come a day when I say the wrong thing to Seth Meyers and he’ll get me fired.”

“You should be more scared of Lorne,” Bill hums, starting the walk down the hall, opposite direction of Seth, towards the main elevator of the building, “I don’t think Seth will be the reason you get fired.”

“Really?”

Bill nods, hands in pockets as he maintains his pace right beside John, “Yeah. You’re obviously going to get fired because one day, some idiot is going to let your pitch for a fake but scarily realistic heart to be defiledon _live _television. And then the FCC is coming for your ass.”

“Is that a promise?” John’s voice goes up in a sarcastic excitement as they reach the elevator and he punches the button to call for it. He turns to face Bill immediately, the dumbest of smirks on his face, “Don’t get my hopes up, Billy boy.”

———————————————

It’s cold.

Maya immediately misses the blasting heater of the taxi as they step out onto the sidewalk in front of their destination and she sends a text to Bill that they’ve arrived. The ride had been silent as they had slowly departed the city, making way out of the primary congestion of the city into the tightly packed neighborhood of Greenpoint. It was a farther drive than Maya had been expecting, but she had no complaints as the yellow car took her and her silent boyfriend out of the village, away from Manhattan.

The entire ride had consisted of Ryan, mindlessly replying to emails on his phone and Maya, hopelessly stuck in loop of their conversations prior to this party.

They had finally made up, ‘resolving’ their issues from their fight on Sunday. Maya came home from her long day at work to find a dozen red roses waiting on her doorstep, just as Ryan used to buy for her every time he would see her. Within the hour, Ryan had arrived to answer her text from earlier in the day in person. He explained how he’d _love _to go and spend time with Maya’s friends tonight, how he felt he _owed her_. The words had sat sour with Maya as Ryan explained how he’d start swearing off work one evening a week, a date night for the two of them without interruption. She didn’t want Ryan to _owe _her. To be frank, she didn’t know what she actually, truly did want.

Once Ryan was long gone, returning to his own apartment to get ready for the night out with the promise of returning with a taxi for the two of them, Maya revisited the roses he had sent. One dozen. She had counted them over 5 times, as if she expected to find 11, or 13, the next count. At a certain point she accepted that 12 red roses resided in the vase, and plucked one out. The thorns immediately pricked her fingers and she resorted to holding the rose at the top of its stem, where it met the actual flower, and running her now-injured finger across the petals. She repeated the ruffling until one petal stuck out to her. She pinched it, paused, and then plucked it without remorse. Slowly and carefully, she rubbed the petal between her pointer finger and thumb, feeling the soft velvet roll between her skin.

It felt exactly how she wanted her relationship with Ryan to be.

Maya knew that would never be realistic; it was a selfish want.

Even in the beginning of their love, there had always been a certain roughness to the relationship. It wasn’t a sandpaper roughness, but more of a nails-on-chalkboards roughness. It was the-sound-of-gritting-teeth roughness. The callous touch to their love had served as background noise the first six months, overwhelmed by the excitement and nerves of their honeymoon phase. Maya wasn’t quite sure when that had ended; it _might_ have been at the six month mark when Ryan stopped buying her weekly roses, or possibly at their eight month mark, when work became the apple of Ryan’s eye.

“Who’s hosting again?” Ryan’s voice brings Maya back to the moment, reminding her of what kind of night she was about to embark on.

She crosses her fingers as she replies, “Remember Bill? From Starbucks?”

“_Him?_” The jump in Ryan’s voice causes Maya’s heart to tremble at the thought of more fighting.

“Yeah, is that okay?” Her voice falls hush, nerves and fear alike injecting weakness.

“No, yeah, it’s fine! Don’t get me wrong,” Ryan reassures her, walking over and rubbing his hands across her shoulders, “You had just seemed…so…upset when we ran into him, if that’s the word.”

“I was just caught off guard, everything’s fine. I promise,” Maya leans up and presses her lips onto Ryan’s. She wants to feel something _besides _the fluttering she’s grown accustomed to. It doesn’t feel like the butterflies from the movies. There’s a sense of warning, as if she’s not feeling them because of Ryan directly, but instead due to her _anxiety _with Ryan. She remembers her sister questioning if Ryan was _causing _her anxiety mere weeks ago. At the time, she’d promised that wasn’t the case. But in this moment, here and now, she wasn’t sure anymore.

Their lips stay connected for an awkward second extra as she desperately awaits fireworks, for tingling lips, teeth clashing due to smiles. Anything new, anything foreign.

Ryan pulls away before smiling so small it’s dismissible, and Maya is left with a pit of flutters in her stomach. The fireworks never come; it’s a sore disappointment.

Not even moments after they’ve loss contact with each other, Bill opens the door to the front of the building. He’s all smiles and warm, pink cheeks. Maya curses the comfort that trickles down her spine as he waves them up the front steps. She vows to not act on the feeling. It’s not her place. Her place is beside Ryan, happy and safe. Here, her mistakes maintain as small wounds. Wounds of harsh words and outbursts of irritation solved by a dozen red roses.

Maya couldn’t undo what she’s done to Bill with any amount of roses, daisies, tulips, etcetera. For this reason, she begins to regret accepting the invitation as her and Ryan approach the doorway.

“Hey!” Bill greets them once they’re in front of him. He pauses for a moment, considering how to greet them, when Maya makes the choice for him.

She maintains her distance, standing stiffly and producing the smallest of waves. Their eyes meet and it takes everything in Bill not to reach out to her. He doesn’t want distance, he doesn’t want small waves to match the small talk bound to occur now. He wants to know her again. It’s an ache, a burn, he cannot soothe.

And so he stands in the cold doorway engaged in a staring contest with her while her brown eyes take away his breath again, as if it were the first time.

“Oh, hey man!” Ryan is the one who breaks the silence between them. He seems ecstatic, as if _he_ were the one seeing an old friend. Bill feels bad for the pang of annoyance he feels aimed at him. But would it really cause any harm to let Bill and Maya stare into each other’s eyes until the world melted?

Bill stands there, not knowing how to react besides the tight smile he gives Ryan and the slight nod. He’s beginning to second guess his invite.

“We should get inside, it’s freezing,” Maya speaks up with chattering teeth before Bill can get too into his head about the situation. Her voice drinks down like the wine he had previously consumed before they arrived. It’s cool down his throat until it reaches his chest, and then it happens. Warmth tangles between his ribs and a buzz in his head increases. The buzz blurs his vision until all he can see is_ her_.

He hates himself for it. It’s a hopeless feeling when she’s standing in front of him, beside her _boyfriend_. It’s a sinking feeling when he remembers she’s the one who left.

“Yeah, yeah. Of course! Follow me,” Bill nods and clumsily turns to lead the way.

The three of them take on the stairway they’re immediately confronted with, Bill leading the way. Maya notes the way the building is built more like hers than Ryan’s. Ryan’s apartment building is larger, flashier, wider. This building is narrow; it follows New York’s practicality rule that building upward is better than outward, and it brings her a sense of home. She’d always preferred the tall Seattle skyscrapers to the low architecture of the Phoenician suburbia.

“So who’s all at this party?” Ryan asks as they finally stop on a platform and Bill guides them down a hallway. It’s not as narrow as Maya’s own hallway she passes through daily, but the three still cannot walk side by side.

Bill looks over his right shoulder, making eye contact with Maya first before replying to Ryan, “Just some cast members and writers. None of the big shots are in the house tonight, unfortunately.”

“Cast members? Writers?”

“Did Maya not mention this is an SNL party?” Bill questions, cocking up his eyebrows and turning to face them in front of a dark red door. Maya opens her mouth to defend herself, but Ryan is already answering.

“No! How exciting,” Ryan smiles, and Bill focuses his attention on knocking on the door. Ryan immediately leans to whisper in Maya’s ear, “What’s SNL?”

Maya fights hard to bite back her laughter, Bill looks at her curious. “Saturday Night Live.”

Despite that fact that she whispered, Bill hears and can assume Ryan had to ask an obvious question. He mimics her amused expression as the door opens. John stands between them and the calm excuse of a party that is occurring within the apartment.

“You’re back!”

“With company!”

Ryan is smiling at the interaction between the two men, clearly close, as Maya gasps.

_The awkward guy from Ryan’s building. The one who saw me crying. _ ** _John_ ** _._

The recognition is not one-sided as John finally meets her eyes. 

“Holy _fuck_.”

“What?” Bill tenses and is glaring at John, as if secretly threatening him to not speak another word. He’s mentally bargaining for John to _not _bring up the Facebook picture and conversation that followed.

John is oblivious as he is _not _recognizing Maya as Bill’s ghost, but rather the small girl with the shitty boyfriend. “You’re the girl from the stairwell!” 

“And you’re the handkerchief guy!” Maya exclaims back, smiling slightly.

Bill stands stunned as Ryan interrupts, “What stairwell?”

John takes one look at Ryan, and swallows down the words that immediately come to mind. _You must be the shitty boyfriend._

“The stairwell to my, and your, apartment building,” John explains. Bill tenses even _further._ He’s gone from the frozen state of a lost bystander to that of a stone statue.

“The apartment building?” Bill whispers, staring with too much shock for Maya’s comfort.

“Yeah, I—I had fell on my way up to Ryan’s apartment, and John…” she trails off, meeting John’s eyes in hope that he’d play along.

He does. “I came to the rescue, like the god damn superhero I am.”

“Oh,” the answer seemingly satisfies Ryan’s brewing interrogation, but Bill is still holding a questioning expression. John and him share a look, and eventually John gives a shrug and mouthes ‘we’ll talk later’. Everyone can clearly see him mouth it, but no one addresses it as Bill makes a clear attempt to relax his shoulders.

“Well, come in! There’s a party awaiting for you,” John opens the door wide enough to allow the group to enter, making an extravagant gesture of it that causes Bill to smack his shoulder lightly.

Once they pass the threshold, Maya is wide-eyed, grinning like a child and looking around excitedly. Prior to the past year, she’d kept up on the latest cast and rotation of writers on SNL. She’d soak up her favorite jokes, and deconstruct her least favorite skits.

It was something her and Bill had shared. At one point, every Saturday night, they turned in their textbooks and instead curled up in front of a TV seeking out entertainment and laughter. It was a sense of security, knowing every Saturday night she had plans. Even if it only involved her, Bill, their shitty TV, and a couch-turned-mountain-of-blankets. The occasional cheap wine had snuck its way into their plans. She’d always joked with Bill that the cheaper the better, that they weren’t meant for a lavish life. Her old, frayed blankets always could attest.

It was a sore spot that she refuses to allow to damper her mood, meeting several pairs of eyes in the apartment. She focuses her attention on spotting a familiar face rather than reminisce.

“Hey everyone, this is…” John begins to exclaim, but immediately turns to Maya and Ryan with wide eyes.

Maya smiles, leaning forward and whispering to John, “Maya and Ryan.”

“Maya and Ryan!” John finishes his exclamation, “Everyone play nice, that includes you, Samberg.”

“No promises,” A guy calls out from one of the couches, and Maya assumes this is ‘Samberg’.

Maya and Ryan follow behind Bill towards the kitchen, where the counters are covered in an assortment of alcoholic beverages. There’s several wine bottles, whites and reds and roses alike. Maya spots a cooler filled with beers, both bottled and canned, and can see a lonesome bottle of whiskey pushed into a darker corner of the kitchen.

“Dealer’s choice.”

Bill’s words hit Maya, _hard_. She knows what he’s referencing. Suddenly, they aren’t standing in the middle of this apartment. She’s back in room 120 with him, a naive college student. The air is humid and she can almost hear the rain on the roof again, she can almost _taste _the pizza.

She turns to look at him, catching the small smile ons his face just as it begins to fade. Her stomach drops with his smile because she knows he’s waiting, pleading, _praying _for her to react in a positive manner.

The words _pick your poison_ are on the tip of her tongue when Ryan interrupts. Her mouth is open, her tongue peaking out, her lips prepared to meet in a soft ‘puh’, when Ryan turns to question Bill, “Do you guys have any mixers or chasers for the whiskey?”

The haven of nostalgia has dissipated. “I’m sure we do. We’re not barbarians,” Bill pauses and shares a look with Maya before finally forcing himself to move towards the small fridge with Ryan beside him, “Fair warning, though, we’re not fratboys. The selection is small and pitiful.”

“I can work with that,” Ryan laughs, and Maya aches.

They prepare their drinks, Bill helping Ryan find a suitable mixer for his whiskey while Maya quietly pours herself a generous glass of white wine. By the time they’ve moved onto the living room, situated themselves amongst a small group at the couches, the lonesome ghost in Maya’s chest wails. She’s surrounded by people, and has never felt more alone. There’s a craving she can’t satisfy, the need to deplete the distance between her and everyone else. But as she looks around the room, sipping the sweet wine, she finds herself disinterested in the people she sees.

She’s sure they’re good people. The couple on the loveseat to her right are adorable and radiate happiness. ‘Samberg’ is wasted, but a funny drunk who’s entertaining everyone around him. His presence in the room reminds her of Bill, and the ghost cries out again. He’s right here, with her now, and she still feels his absence. It’s _her _fault. She can’t play it off nonchalant, she can’t rationalize it. A year and a half ago, she walked away from him. He begged her to stay, and she still walked out the door. She knew her suitcase had felt heavy that day, but wasn’t aware it was due to this ghost that would haunt her. Survivor’s guilt, loneliness, and herself. It was an eternal party.

Her lips stay sealed on her glass, determined to not let the wails escape and interrupt the flowing conversation. It’s going to be a long night.

———————————————

At some point in the night, their circle grows by several more people sitting around on the loveseats, couch, and table space. Maya feels content, surprisingly, as she feels Ryan pressed against her right shoulder, and Bill against her left. She’s on her fourth glass of wine, nursing it at the same consistent pace she has been drinking the entire night.

The conversation’s focus was _romance_. Maya wants to laugh at the irony — the fact that she sits between two lovers, past and present. As she mulls over this fact, one of the guys, Fred, focuses in on Ryan.

“You get it though, right? You two are together, right?” Fred waves his hand between Ryan and Maya.

“Yes, we are,” Ryan _chirps,_ scooting to the edge of his seat. He’s leaning in, drinking up what attention he can capture. Meanwhile, Maya is leaning back, pressing herself against the couch and urging it to swallow her whole to _avoid _the unwarranted attention. It is there, in the small differences, that their relationship lies.

Fred mimics Ryan and decreases the distance even further, “It’s hard, right? Girls remember everything. I always feel like such a dumb ass.”

“Well, not to brag, but we’ve been together for a year,” Ryan pridefully states and turns to catch Maya’s eye. She’s smiling softly, gripping her chilled wine glass by the stem, “I know just about everything about her, too.”

Maya leans forward and laughs gently, joining Ryan in his spotlight. Suddenly, she’s no longer pressed against Bill. The cold leaves him stiff and numb as he watches the scene unfold.

“No way.”

“Yes way.”

“Alright, what’s her favorite color?” Fred challenges.

Maya’s smiling and holding back childish giggles as she looks at Ryan. _This is too easy_, she thinks. _We’ve been together for a year, in what world would he not know this?_

Eventually, though, she takes notice in Ryan’s silence. He’s sitting there, red in the cheeks, and her heart thrums. _Does he not know this?_

“Uh….I….” Ryan stammers out several sounds, but none of them resemble a color.

Maya racks her brain quickly. Has she ever even mentioned her favorite color? She can’t recall. Immediately, she jumps in to save Ryan with a question she’s sure she’s mentioned the answer to, “I’m not big on favorite colors. What about my favorite flower?”

Bill’s attention has joined the conversation now. He leans forward to steal a glance across Maya’s freckled profile, staring down a silent Ryan. He can see Maya’s cheeks are flooding in a pink tint and Bill wishes he could brush it off as the alcohol in her system. He knows better, though. He can see the anxiety trickling down to her fingertips, into her pupils, as the embarrassment builds.

Ryan finally forces an answer, not sounding very solidified in it, “Uh, r-roses?”

Bill watches Maya’s face fall slightly, and agitation grows in him. How did Ryan _not _know these things?

“That does not look like the face of a girl who’s favorite flower is roses,” Fred states with nervous laughter. Everyone in the room can sense the chaos boiling beneath.

“What my favorite movie, Ry?” Maya’s voice is so soft, Ryan can’t help but look at her sadly. She sounds so desperate, all she needs is one correct answer from him. He knows it, she knows it, the girl sitting at the kitchen table across the room knows it. But he cannot, for the life of him, give an answer to the question.

She knows it when she looks in his eyes. It breaks her heart, but she thinks for a moment that she deserves it for the way she’s acted the past month. He’s looking at her like she’s a stranger again.

Fred laughs nervously, again, and tries to help the hopeless situation, “Those are hard questions. People change their favorite things constantly! I’ve got a question that should be easy,” everyone’s eyes land on Fred, urging him to help, “What’s her middle name?”

Bill’s elbows press into the top of his thighs, just shy of his knees. He’s burning holes into the carpet as he holds back the answers on the tip of his tongue. It’s an easy one. It was his favorite thing to tease her with. It had inspired his favorite nickname for her. His ears perked when Ryan cleared his throat.

_Of course, he knows this one. Who could date a Maya Ophelia Phoenix and not know her middle name?_

“Is it Ann?”

Maya’s world comes to a halt. She can’t figure out if the wine makes her stomach twist, or if it is Ryan’s words.

“What?”

“Your middle name is Ann, right?”

A hush falls over the room. Maya finds the courage to make eye contact once more with Ryan, and he can immediately see his mistake.

“Oh my God. I—May, I’m so sorry. It’s not Ann? Oh, fuck,” Ryan rambles, the whiskey slurring its way into his sentences. He’s not quite drunk, but he’s certifiably tipsy, “I’m sorry, baby! Oh, God. I mean— I just… do you even know mine? These questions are so stup-”

“Alexander,” Maya interrupts.

“What?” Ryan questions, but his face is pale. He knows.

“Your middle name is Alexander. You told me on our third date when I jokingly called you Prince Charming. We both agreed Alexander is a name for royalty.. I, sorry…” Maya pauses as it hits her all at once. He doesn’t know her favorite color. He doesn’t know her favorite flower, or her favorite movie. He doesn’t know her middle name. She knows all these facts for him, even buzzed, but he is clueless. The looks they’re receiving send her reeling, “I’m sorry, I just. I need a minute, I’m so sorry.”

As she blurts out the words, she glances around the circle quickly. The attention is stifling. She excuses herself again as she stands up abruptly, and stumbles her way around the legs in her way and makes it to the door.

Ryan doesn’t say a word as she leaves out to the hallway, and Bill is shocked. He’s barely processing the entire event. It was so _fucked._

Everyone is quiet, save for the radio serving as background noise. Ryan is still sitting straight up, in his spotlight, seemingly frozen. He doesn’t so much as slouch as Maya leaves. His face is the only part of his body to show remorse. The door clicks shut and his eyes flutter shut and his mouth twitches. It is a microscopic flinch, but it is enough to make Bill believe that he will get up and follow her.

He sets a mental timer. One minute. It’s a minute too long, in his opinion, but he has to give Ryan the benefit of the doubt. This is not his battle. It is Ryan and Maya’s battle.

Eventually, the man referred to as Samberg by John, who had eventually been introduced as Andy, clears his throat and stands, “I’m gonna grab another beer. Anyone else?”

Everyone else stays eerily silent until Ryan raises an unsure hand, “I’ll take another one, yeah.”

Bill’s eyebrows furrow. The minute has trickled down to 15 seconds as he watches the clock across the room.

_14._

Ryan relaxes his shoulders and Andy leaves to the kitchen.

_13._

The people of their circle begin talking in low tones, and Ryan is peering anywhere but the door.

_12._

Bill’s legs burn to carry him down the hallway, down the stairs, to chase after Maya. She’s _upset._ But Ryan has remained unbothered.

_11._

Someone asks Ryan a question, a buzz to Bill’s ears that he cannot distinguish. Ryan answers, and Bill cannot even read his lips. Why isn’t he getting up? Why isn’t he chasing her?

_10._

Bill can’t take it. The minute is an eternity. He _knows _Maya. When she’s upset, her legs can carry her across continents. She could be all the way back in the village by now, fueled by the sadness on her face when she had left the room.

Bill doesn’t listen to the clock anymore as he moves to stand up, leaning forward and then pausing. He turns his head towards a mildly startled Ryan.

“It’s Ophelia,” Bill mutters, making direct eye contact.

“Pardon?” Ryan is playing clueless once more, and it gets old for Bill quickly.

“Her middle name is Ophelia,” all eyes left in the circle are on Bill as he says this and finally stands up. Andy is returning with two beers in hand, sending a confused glance Bill’s way.

Bill doesn’t give any of them a look in return. His eyes remain on Ryan long enough to see realization settle in, and then he is making his way across the room. He’s already halfway down the hallway when the door to the apartment clicks close behind him. A certain panic settles into his chest as he takes the stairs two at a time.

_Did she go far?_

The alcohol from the night slows Bill down as he reaches the entrance to the building, and he _prays _that Maya didn’t run off far. He’d rather not test his lungs in that way.

In his head, Bill bursts through the door heroically and in a startling fashion. The slap of his palms against the glass echo, and can be heard from the empire state building. His cheeks don’t turn red from the cold wind that hits his face and his hands don’t shake with nerves.

Reality is that Bill is silent. He is a ghost as he pushes the door open gently, and his hands vibrate as he spots Maya’s figure sitting on the bottom step of the outside stairs.

Her shoulders are shaking with soft sobs, body folded in two as she seems to implode on herself. The wind carries away the majority of her sniffles and cries, but some still reach Bill’s ears. It tugs on his heart, twists his stomach, caves into his chest.

His hand slides from the door and it finally swings shut. It’s a quiet slam, but enough noise to make Maya freeze. Her crying immediately stops.

He doesn’t know what to say as she straightens up but doesn’t face him. He’s at a loss for words. What can he say? _Sorry your boyfriend doesn’t know much about you. Sorry I invited you to a party where my friends are too nosey. Sorry I can’t fix this._

None of those words, those apologies, are on the tip of his tongue. Instead, there’s a blur of answers in his mouth that have gathered there since Ryan’s interrogation had began.

He throws caution to the wind as he speaks up, “Yellow, sunflowers, It, Ophelia.”

“What?” Maya finally turns herself to face him once she hears his voice. Tears still shine across her cheeks as she scrunches her nose, and it sends a bitter chill through Bill’s jaw as he realizes one thing for certain.

Ryan may not know much about Maya, but he knows how to break her.

He takes a careful step forward at the realization, and continues stepping down a step before clearing his throat again, “Your favorite color is yellow, your favorite flower is a sunflower, your favorite movie is It even though it’s _technically_ a miniseries, and your middle name is Ophelia.”

Maya’s face melts in realization. The comfort encases her spine again, a replay from the moment in the night mere hours before. When one look at Bill’s face had settled the disappointment from her kiss with Ryan. She doesn’t fight it this time, and embraces it. She lets her eyes meet Bill’s, and she lets herself feel the comfort he brings for her. It’s the feeling of going home after a long day, of wrapping yourself in your favorite favorite blanket. It’s watching your favorite TV show reruns, drinking your favorite tea, holding your favorite hand.

It’s _comfort_.

Maya realizes she’s stayed stoic too long as Bill softly smiles at her, trying to hide his expectancy of an answer as he steps down another step.

“Actually, it’s blue,” she finally speaks.

“What?” It’s Bill’s turn to be confused now as he steps down the final two steps and is in front of her, looking down.

“My favorite color is blue now.”

His eyebrows perk up as he continues to look down at her. With anyone else in her life, she’d expect an outburst. She would already be tense and ready for Ryan to pick a fight in the fact that she was being a smart ass, or her sister to roll her eyes and complain about the way she couldn’t let others be right.

Her shoulders are slack, though, as she looks up at Bill. He won’t react either of those ways, because he is Bill. He is not Ryan, the shattered image of a boyfriend. He is not Amelia, a sister a continent away. He’s Bill, the same Bill he was the day they first met. Because of this, his face burst into a smile and not flames, and he takes a seat next to Maya on the stair.

“Well, that sounds like a wet dream for some desperate therapist stuck in a tiny ass apartment in Manhattan,” he hums as he situates his body to partially face her. She does the same, and their knees knock gently.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if you happen to say your email too loudly, they’re definitely going to get into contact with you about how the whole changing of your favorite color is a _huge_ metaphor for depression.”

“It’s not,” Maya defends softly, a smile gripping the corners of her mouth gently, “I just think blue’s a pretty color.”

“So yellow’s not pretty enough for you anymore?”

“No, yellow is still pretty.”

“Hm,” Bill nods, scanning her face with a grin that causes her to squirm.

“Okay, maybe my favorite color just depends on the day. Wipe the smug grin off your face, _asshat_.”

“Sure thing, _mop_.”

Maya groans on cue, and for a moment, it’s easy again. It’s Bill&Maya, Maya&Bill, and everything is alright.

She knows better than to let it last too long, though. She’s not oblivious to why Bill is out here. “So he’s still up there?”

“Yeah, fresh beer in hand.”

They’re both biting back a thousand words. There are spaces between them too wide, too long to surpass. Bill wants to explode on how awful of a boyfriend Ryan appears to be, and Maya just wants to explode without reason. She hasn’t been able to for over a year and the pressure is causing damage.

“Thank you for coming after me,” she keeps a soft tone despite the pressure, “I appreciate it, honestly. I just…”

“You just wish it was the dumb ass upstairs,” he finishes her sentence for her.

She’s looking at him with all the remorse in the world, and he misses the time remorse had been love. “He’s not always a dumb ass, I swear.”

“I’m sure he isn’t. I can’t see you staying with someone who treats you like this for a whole _year_.”

Maya doesn’t have an immediate response. She’s silent, roasting in her own demise. Defending Ryan had become a reflex, a coping mechanism. She doesn’t understand why it is so hard to muster up her practiced script now, why it is so hard to explain away the drama.

“He used to bring me flowers every time he’d see me. Red roses,” these words are not from Maya’s script, but she cannot stop them.

“What a saint.”

“He’s just had a lot of issues with work these past six months, and I get it, you kno-“

Bill cuts her off, “Wait. Hold on. He’s been treating you like this for _six months_?”

“No! It hasn’t been this bad. You just came at a wrong time, we’re off our rhythm. He just needs tim-“

“You don’t have to convince me, Maya,” one look at his face and she knew he was right. She didn’t need to explain herself, but she _wanted _to.

“I know, I know. But…” she pauses. _But what?_

Bill notices her trail off, and speaks her thought out-loud, “But…what?”

“It’s just infuriating. I mean, I’m the only one who _really _knows him. He can be a real ass when he has an audience, don’t get me wrong. But he’s also the same person who bought me roses. He’s the same guy who taught me how to ice skate at _Rockefeller, _despite how embarrassing it was. He’s the same person who made New York a little less scary, like I could actually _do it,” _Maya’s chest clenches at these words, “He made New York a home when it had just been a stranger.”

Her voice wavers through the entire proclamation. Somewhere deep within her, she _knows _that her words don’t ring true. Ryan _had _been that person, but people grow and feelings change. It is not her fault nor his that he evolved as a person while she was stuck in a standstill.

Bill is left unsteady. He doesn’t _know _how to respond to that kind of confession, that kind of rebuttal. “I don’t see any roses right now. I see you, crying outside in a particularly cruel and cold October in New York, because of him. I’m sorry, I just don’t see it.”

Bill’s whispers ignite something in Maya. Her denial is back, tenfold. “_You _don’t have to see it. I can be the only one who sees it, and that’s all that matters.”

“I get that, Maya. But you deserve someone who doesn’t make a hobby of breaking you weekly.”

“Oh, okay, like who? I deserve someone like you?” She doesn’t mean for the words to be so god damned _bitter_. She says ‘someone like you’ as if the words are poison, as if Bill _isn’t _one of the best someones she’s ever had the chance to meet.

“I’m not saying that!” Their knees are no longer touching, and Bill creates clear, physical space between them. It’s a soft disappointment, an unwarranted one. The space is as heavy as the taste of kisses without fireworks or smiles.

She wants to say _I’m sorry_. She doesn’t. “He doesn’t have to know my favorite things to be boyfriend of the year.”

“He doesn’t, but Jesus Christ, he doesn’t know your _middle name_. Your entire _family _makes jokes abou-“

“He’s only met my family twice! Briefly!”

Bill falters. “You’ve been together a fucking year, and he’s met your family _twice_?”

He knows it’s not a big deal in most relationships. Normal relationships aren’t measured by time spent with the girl’s family. But this is different, because Bill knows Maya and her family. He met them by the 3 month mark in their relationship. Every holiday was an excuse to see her mother, to bother her sister. Family was a _big _thing for Maya. By their first anniversary, he might have spent more time with Maya’s sister than his own.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Sure, if he didn’t make you cry every fucking week. And if he knew your middle name, or your favorite movie,” Bill is exasperated, bewildered, concerned. It’s not his place, but he can’t think of that in the moment, “I mean, how the fuck does he not know your favorite _movie_, Maya? You want to work in film, and he doesn’t know your favorite movie?”

“He doesn’t _know _I want to work in film, Bill.”

“So what _does _he know about you, then?”

They should be mindful of the neighbors. They should realize that the other is not the enemy. But their voices continue to climb.

“Who cares? It’s not your relationship!”

“Maya, how is your boyfriend of one year so _clueless_?”

“I—I don’t know, and I don’t _care_.”

“Clearly you care. You stormed out of a party indoors into the fucking cold.”

“Just because you knew some dumb facts about me, it— that doesn’t mean you can just _attack _him or be mad at him!” It’s a losing argument. Maya can feel it as her words lose meaning, as she feels like a fool.

“Do you hear yourself? Why aren’t you concerned I remember this shit, and he _doesn’t_? He guessed that your middle name was _Ann_, Maya!”

“_Because we were actually in love_!” Maya’s voice echoes from her scream.

This is her explosion. After a year of playing up her polite side, of bottling up the negative feelings that both Ryan and Amelia were incapable of navigating, she explodes.

She doesn’t wait to see the damage, suddenly on her feet and avoiding taking note of the look on Bill’s face. She can already assume it matches the one that crossed his face when she left him. Her heart can’t handle it, not now, not ever.

“Ma-“

“I’d like to go back inside, please.”

“No, we-“

“Now, _please._”

And so they go back in. Bill lets them back into the building, and they climb the stairs quietly. The hallway feels darker now, the red door seeming just a _little _more faded than before. They reenter the room, and go their separate ways.

Maya goes for Ryan, and Bill goes for the whiskey. Everything _hurts. _Bill’s ears sting, and Maya’s lips burn. Bill’s head throbs as he takes a shot of whiskey, a pulse matching Maya’s chest across the room as she informs Ryan that they’re leaving. Maya politely says goodbye to John and Andy, and Ryan shamefully waves off the entire room.

Her eyes don’t meet Bill’s. They don’t exchange a single word.

Things always hurt worse the second time around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before anyone asks, the stupid medical joke is something that I ACTUALLY HAVE SAID TO FRIENDS. I said I wanted someone to nut on my heart as a joke, someone was like "on your chest?" and I had the nerve to go "no during open heart surgery". I'm stupid, sorry. ALSO. no amount of apologies will make up for how long this update took, but maybe a 7k+ word chapter will. this chapter went through many a rewrites because I needed to get it perfect. it's still not perfect, but I think it's a losing battle with my perfectionist self. hopefully you're all having a wonderful holiday season!


	11. chapter eleven

“She said _what?_”

John and Bill are seated across from each other at a local diner, coffee’s growing cold as the conversation has taken up all their attention.

“_‘Because we were actually in love’_,” Bill uses air quotes as he recites the words that have echoed through his head for the last twelve hours.

He’s told himself he doesn’t know what she means, that the words confuse him more than give him any sort of relief. But it’s a lie; Bill knows _exactly _what she meant. He had recognized that desperation in her voice the moment the argument had gained traction between them last night as he’d felt it before. He’d felt it in his chest when one of the baristas at his old coffee shop had written her number on his coffee cup, or when John had tried to set him up on a blind dinner date. She had been making the comparisons in her relationship just as he had during his small, failed piques of romance, and he had crossed a line he shouldn’t have by voicing them against her. They both knew no one would compare to the other. It was an unspoken acknowledgement until Bill had lost control of his bitter tongue last night.

“I…Wow, okay, I literally have no words of wisdom for you,” John finally leans back in his seat, relaxing slightly. He’d been on edge since Bill had offered to explain to him Maya’s abrupt exit from the party.

Bill groans. “I don’t need words of wisdom, Mulaney. I need…I hate to admit it, but I think what I need is for me and her to actually _talk _about it.”

“You say that as if it’s a life sentence without parole.”

“It _feels _like a life sentence without parole.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” John resumes to eating his breakfast in front of him, fork scraping against the plate and worsening Bill’s own headache from his pesky hangover.

“I’m not being dramatic.” _But wasn’t he?_

Bill considers and weighs his options at hand. He could pretend it never happened, bury his head in the metaphorical sand and live in blissful ignorance again.

But he knows if he chooses this option, he loses Maya. For real this time.

If he at least _tries _to get Maya to talk to him about it, there’s still a chance for them. There’s that sliver of a chance in which the Universe let’s them still be in each other’s lives, even if it will only be as acquaintances who grab coffee to catch up on small talk every six months. And Bill will take whatever he can get. He’d mark that coffee date on his calendar as if it were the next great American holiday if it meant still having Maya in his life.

“Okay. Yeah, you’re right, I’m being dramatic. But how the hell do I even approach it?” Bill brings his cold coffee up for a sip, and an idea comes to mind, “Should I invite her for coffee again?”

John surprisingly doesn’t hesitate in answering Bill, despite his mouthful of food, “_Again_? God, no. If you only ever see her to get coffee, you’re dooming yourself to the coffee-zone.”

“Coffee-zone?” Bill questions, finally taking a bite of toast.

John swallows, nodding vigorously, “Yeah! You know, that person you only ever see for coffee. And if you ever try to see her for something different, like brunch or a movie, it’s just _weird_. You guys would only be able to function with enough space for two lattes between you, maybe a butter croissant added in too if she’s feeling particular cold towards you that day.”

Bill’s about to open his mouth, rebuttal some snarky remark, when his phone buzzes in his pocket with a text.

The minute he looks at it, John reads his face and goes completely serious, “What is it?”

Bill’s face slowly unscrunches as he laughs at the timing of the message, choosing to slide his phone across the table to John rather than read it outloud. He motions for John to look at the message.

**Maya: **Hey, can we talk?

“Well…I guess this means you don’t have to figure out your approach,” John says as he slides the phone back towards Bill, “But I mean, do you know what you want to say to her?”

Bill shrugs, more focused on typing out his response than properly responding.

**Bill: **Of course, where do you want to meet? Coffee?

“Hey,” John snaps his fingers out in front of Bill, breaking his trance of awaiting her next response, “I’m serious. You should figure out how you feel about all of this before you run off meeting up with her again on a whim.”

“What do you mean?” Bill finally looks up to meet John’s concerned stare, looking more serious than the nights in which he thought Lorne Michaels was _definitely _going to fire him.

“I mean, how do you feel?”

“About what, John?”

“About all of it. About her hinting at not really being in love with her new beau, about finally seeing her again. I mean, did you guys ever talk about the breakup?”

Bill falters. He doesn’t _want _to admit to John that since Maya had reentered his life, he’s had more questions than answers about their entire situation.

“I’m fine, I promise.”

“So you guys _haven’t _talked about it?”

“We’ll get there when we get there.”

Bill hates the way John is looking at him, a concerned friend who clearly just wants the best for him, watching him dive headfirst into his worst idea yet.

But they both know that Bill doesn’t have a choice. John doesn’t even know the full story yet, and one day Bill is sure to tell him, but he’s _seen _the way he looks at her. In pictures, in person. It’s clear that when it comes to Maya, Bill can’t just _choose _to walk away. Maybe it’s in their souls, a magnetic aspect that draws them together whenever they are near. Maybe it’s the universe, unintentionally cruel in the worst of times. But whatever it is, it takes away the choice.

Bill’s phone buzzes with another response from Maya.

**Maya: **I actually have somewhere else in mind.

Bill swallows down a smile as he looks back up to John, “How angry would you be if I left breakfast a bit early?”

“It’s her, isn’t it?” John sighs, picking his fork back up as if it serves as a white flag, “Just make sure to swing by the studio at _some _point this afternoon. Final pitches for this week’s sketches are due tomorrow.”

“Of course,” Bill promises, nodding as he struggles to pull out his wallet.

“And, for the love of God Bill, please be careful,” John’s tone is the same as a worried mother.

“I always am.”

“Not with her, you aren’t.”

Bill doesn’t respond immediately, slapping a twenty dollar bill on the table and shrugging his coat back on.

“Don’t forget, swing by this afternoon!” John persists to try and get back Bill’s attention one last time before he runs off.

“I heard you the first time, I’ll see you later,” Bill mumbles, waving his friend off before rushing to the door of the diner.

He thinks he hears John calling out something else, but his mind is already far gone, wondering what exactly Maya has in mind for them.

———————————————

Central Park.

An hour later, Bill has parted ways with John and ends up in Central Park, eyes scanning the small crowds around him for the small blonde.

She had texted him to meet her here, specifically by Bethesda Fountain, as soon as possible. She insisted she’d be right behind him, heading out at the same time as he left the diner. 

It’s been ten minutes, though, since Bill arrived and he’s starting to convince himself that maybe he’d imagined the texts. Maybe his mind had conjured it all up and Maya _wasn’t _going to meet up with him. He could only imagine how ridiculous he looked, freezing to death on a bench as the wind brushes over the water and into his face, his eyes sending all their pent up daggers in the direction of the angel statue on top of the fountain. He was a fool, a hopeless, overly eager, idio-

“Hey Bill.”

And there she is. Standing in front of him, hands buried deep in the pockets of a familiar, over-sized coat. It’s the same one that swallowed her up in the picture he’d seen of her on Amelia’s facebook, when he had first found out she was in New York. A picture that changed everything.

“Maya! I mean, hey, how are you?” He curses himself for the unnecessary optimism as he scoots himself over on the bench, leaving plenty of room for her to sit and leave the physical space between them he assumes she needs.

She surprises him. She doesn’t sit on the opposite end of the bench and leave a canyon between them. She takes the seat right next to him, shoulders and thighs _almost _brushing.

“I’ve been better, what about you?” There’s a certain sadness to her tone, not the kind you’d necessarily want to describe as sad, but instead hopeless. It’s hollow, and it echoes.

He notices the mascara smudged under her eyes. “Oh, you know. Could be worse.”

It’s _awkward. _He hates it, because he has never known a moment with Maya so stiff, so unsure. They let the silence between them rest as the white noise of the water takes over, children calling out in the distance. He wants to know what she’s thinking, what thoughts force her hand in turning so quiet. How many unspoken words flow between them now?

“I’m sorry for the change of location. I just wasn’t feeling coffee,” she breaks the silence first.

“Don’t apologize, I don’t mind,” all he can do is reassure her as the guilt starts to bubble up. She shouldn’t be the one apologizing, “Do you come here often?”

They both laugh softly, almost inaudibly. “I do, actually. This and the conservatory garden are nice places to think.”

He bites back a joking comment about how it’s dangerous for her to think, or how touristy she sounds right now. He can tell that’s not what she needs to hear.

“You were always a nature freak,” this gets a giggle out of her as he pauses, “It makes sense you’d find sanctuary in… well, nature, in the middle of a concrete jungle.”

“It isn’t odd, is it?”

“What, this park existing in New York?”

“No, _me _existing in New York.”

They both turn to face each other, eyes meeting. She has the most deathly, serious look on her face, but Bill can’t help his smile, “No. It isn’t odd, at all.”

Maya shakes her head as if to erase the smile growing to match his, “You cannot look me in the eyes and say you truthfully could have ever imagined me here.”

“I don’t have to imagine it, you’re here now, and that feels as _far _from odd as it gets.”

“So me, in New York, feels right? Is that what you’re saying?”

It’s her big brown eyes. The way she’s looking at him with them, and he can see red rims around her eyes. He tells himself it’s just the cold.

“Yeah, yeah. That’s _exactly _what I’m saying. And don’t ask me to explain it because I really can’t. It just…” he pauses, hypnotized by her rosy cheeks, “It just feels right.”

Another silence washes over them, the previous tense and awkward weight of it gone. They’ve clearly broken their ice.

He watches the way that what water still runs on the fountain passes over the icy stone edges, and imagines how many times she’s been here before. Alone, bursting at the seams with all her overwhelming, ever-flowing thoughts.

If they’re anything like the thoughts she’d have when they were together, they’re persistent, like the water fighting against the ice on the fountain. He remembers that.

“I’m sorry,” he decides to break the silence this time.

“About what?”

“About last night.”

Her head turns hard enough in his direction that her scarf finally settles against her neck, no longer protecting any of her face. “You don’t have to apologize for that, Bill.”

“I do, though.”

“No, _I _should be the one apologizing. I let my feelings get the best of me, and I was…” her pause gives him the opportunity to interrupt, but he’s too curious for his own good, wanting to hear what she has to say, so he stays quiet, “I was just so upset, so overwhelmed. I shouldn’t have yelled at you, and I-“

“Maya, you don’t have to explain yourself to me. I get it. I promise, I get it.”

She sniffles as she turns her body more fully to face him, not just her head. He reminds himself that, once again, it’s just the cold.

“I know you get it. And _I_ know that_ you_ know that I’m still sorry.”

He can see the blame and the guilt weighing down her slumped shoulders, and can’t stand it. “For what it’s worth, I shouldn’t have poked my head around where it didn’t belong. I think John’s nosey-ness is rubbing off on me.”

“John is nosey? I didn’t get that vibe _at all_.”

“Try living with him. I get that vibe just by how he sits his mugs in the sink some mornings.”

She laughs at his joke, and he finds himself chuckling along with her. The weight, on her shoulders, still remains. But he swears when she stops laughing, they rest a little higher, as if the guilt has lightened microscopically. He’s probably reading too much into it.

“I’ve missed you.”

She’s _full _of surprises, he realizes, this meeting. It’s unexpected and knocks the wind out of him. It’s the _way _she says it, like they’re finally on the same page again. As if she’d mark her calendar for their bi-annual coffee date too.

“Can we-“ he cuts himself off, turning his body so his knees knock against hers, the same way they had last night on the stairs, “Can we just agree to be at least _friends_ again? I know I’m asking for a lot, but…But I’ve missed you too, Mop. In a way I don’t ever want to miss you again.”

She’s quiet. He panics.

“You can say no, though, and I get it. I know you’ve got a whole new life here, and I know I don’t have any right to just storm in here and insert myself. I know you have Ryan, and a new job, and-“

“I’d love to be friends again, Bill,” she cuts him off, and the way her eyes shine tells him she’s being honest, “I get what you mean.”

They’re both grinning so hard it hurts their cheeks, and if the cold hadn’t already turned their cheeks pink, the smiles would have.

“Cool,” he whispers, scared if he speaks too loudly, the moment will vanish.

“Cool.”

She’s quiet again, and he knows she’s still upset, he knows _something _is bugging her, something more than just their small fight. “Hey, is…is everything okay? Be honest.”

“What do you mean?” Her shock seems genuine as she leans away from his, eyes wide as she looks at him.

“I mean, you still seem to have something on your mind. And if we’re going to be friends again, that means you can talk to me when something is bothering you,” he watches her pull her hands out of her pockets, fidgeting with them in her lap as she pulls threads off the black gloves she wears.

“It’s nothing.”

“Bullshit.”

He can tell she hates this. And to be fair, he hates it, too. They both know he knows her too damn well, that she could never lie or brush him off if he knew she was upset.

“Bill…i-it’s truly nothing to worry-“

“If it’s something too personal to talk about right now, that’s okay. But don’t say it’s nothing. Just know I’m here whenever or if ever you need to talk.”

She doesn’t say a word in response, just nods ever so subtly as she keeps her eyes cast down. He figures that the conversation is over, that he’ll have to let it go and let it be. He can only help Maya if Maya wants help.

“It’s Ryan.”

_Maya wants help._

“What about him?” Bill asks carefully, treading lighter than he did the night before.

“This morning, I woke up expecting a fight,” her hands are in constant motion, shaking as another ball of fluff rolls off the gloves, “But I didn’t get one. It just hurts, and I don’t know why it hurts, but it…it just…does,” her hands finally still as she sighs the last word, eyes finally looking up to meet Bill’s as they brim with unshed tears.

Everything in him wants to find wherever Ryan has run off to, and beat the hell out of him for making her feel this way.

Instead, he settles for apologizing in the way Ryan should have, “I’m sorry.”

She’s sniffling again, it’s clearly not from the cold, “It’s okay. Not your fault.”

She needs a distraction. And he knows that everyone would tell him that this is dangerous grounds, that they have _just_ agreed to be friends again and he should be weary of boundaries. Bill knows it’s no longer his job to make Maya feel better. He knows that, she knows that, the elderly couple that passed them by moments before knows that. But he knows he can’t just _leave _her like this, like Ryan has. He’s sure he’s going to get a slap on the hand when John hears about this, but he decides he doesn’t mind. He’s willing to be a distraction, to be _her _distraction.

He stands suddenly, an idea coming to mind. “C’mon.”

“C’mon…where, exactly?” She questions him, clearly startled.

“Who cares? This place is huge, let’s just…let’s just walk around, explore, whatever you want to call it,” he waves his hands out around himself as he says this, meeting Maya’s hesitant gaze with determination.

She takes a moment to respond, “I’m pretty sure everything that has ever aired on Dateline tells me _not _to follow you. Are you going to murder me?”

“What? No, never! Can’t two friends just go on an adventure around central park?”

She’s smiling, it’s soft and timid but she’s smiling. It only surges Bill forward with his plan.

“Friends have to trust each other, Mop.”

“Call me Mop again and you’ll be adventuring with your _imaginary _friends.”

“Fine,” he says suddenly, turning on her heel and starting to walk away, “You’re welcome to follow me if you crave adventure!”

He isn’t surprised when, after a few long strides, he hears rushed footsteps trying to catch up to him before her familiar perfume takes over his senses once more.

“You’re an ass,” she mumbles.

And he’s sure she believes it, but she stays by his side nonetheless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....hi. I know I have some 'splaining to do. It's been nearly a year, and a very very awful and hard one at that. Posting this is terrifying mainly because I'm scared I've lost that magic touch or skill level needed to write this story and do it justice but... I'm back. (also I promised to finally finish this story if Biden won presidency and!! he did!!!! holy hell!!!). If you're still here, and reading all this, thank you so so much. I'm glad to be back :-) I've got some fun stuff planned.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry I just wanted some bill hader fluff and this sort of spiraled out of control!!! into a full blown story!!! party!!!


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